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Alumni Profiles

Our alumni are all products of the academic school under which they studied. We wanted to spotlight one from each of the eight schools to show the impact our graduates are making on the world around them.

School of Behavioral & Social Sciences

Dr. Nick Pruitt’s love for history has been lifelong, and he has channeled that love for knowledge into a career passing that down to the next generation. In his role as an assistant professor of history at Eastern Nazarene College near Boston, Pruitt has taught a variety of courses and is the sole U.S. History professor at the school.

He was hired as he finished his last year of the Ph.D. at Baylor University, which he completed with a specialization on 20^th century U.S. History. He also previously earned a MA degree in church-state studies at Baylor. Much of his path he credits to his mentors at WBU.

“It all goes back to 51吃瓜网视频. When I was a freshman, I was planning on being a high school history teacher. Then I got to 51吃瓜网视频 and worked with various professors – Owens, Sweeney, Pyeatt, Ray and Wells. After working with them for four years, I decided I really wanted to work on a college campus working with students. So they left their mark on me in that respect,” he recalled. “My interest in American history, particularly religion and politics in history, were focused there too. I was a history major and a Christian leadership minor, so I took church history with Dr. Sadler and theology with Dr. Meeks. While taking those classes, I really developed a fascination with how the American church responds to hot-button issues in culture and society.”

That melding of history with religion and the church led to a graduate school paper several years ago, then the basis for his doctoral dissertation. Finally, in 2021, he completed a book with his research titled Open Hearts, Closed Doors: Immigration Reform and the Waning of Mainline Protestantism, available on Amazon. An academician at heart, Pruitt said he was hopeful the book would be useful in academic settings, perhaps as a textbook for a church history course or as supplementary material for history teachers. But he had intentions for the church as well.

“I was also hoping it would be beneficial to the church as well by providing some history about how

Christians have responded to immigrants and refugees really over the last 100 years,” he said. “My hope is double-edged: that it fills a niche academically but also provides some light for Christians in terms of how they are thinking about how to respond to issues of immigration and refugee policy today.”

On the other side of the desk now, Pruitt appreciates both the passion for their fields and the mentorship provided by his 51吃瓜网视频 faculty. He hopes to impart both to his current charges at ENC.

“I do love working with students. In one class I teach, I take students to a local archive in Boston and show them what it means to be a historian and work with original sources. It takes me back to when I was a student at 51吃瓜网视频 and Dr. Kevin Sweeney took me to the archives at Texas Tech for the first time. It was like Christmas morning when I got to handle these old documents,” he noted. “So it’s fun to be on the other side now and introduce students to the field.”

 

School of Business

While Katie Kuhn Jordan has admittedly had an entrepreneurial spirit for years, she never really found the right fit in several side gigs she’s tried. Then a series of life events she worked through changed her path and led to her sweet spot.

“When you are living the dream life that you want and seeing these things start to happen, your heart just feels super full. Just knowing that I’m working toward that freedom of not doing the

corporate grind and commute is great,” said Katie, a 2001 graduate of the School of Business who lives near Denver, Colo.

About two years ago, Katie channeled her own experiences in being coached through some grief and life changes and earned her life-coaching certification, then started Butterfly Tribe Blueprint, a business aimed at helping women after divorce rediscover themselves, set personal goals and spread their wings to live the life they desire.

“I am helping women move forward in a positive light, figuring out what their next steps are and what they want to do. I honestly wanted to give women the permission to release the guilt and the shame that comes with divorce that society puts on you,” said Katie, who noted that parenting presents additional challenges. “Having a young child, for us it is about making sure that she is our priority. We are putting our differences aside to make sure she knows she is still loved and appreciated and wanted, and that’s a real thing that children go through when their parents separate and divorce.”

Recently Katie was able to celebrate her business experiences as a contributing writer in Start-Up or

Start Over, Just Start. Launched on July 25 through Amazon, the book was the No. 1 best-selling new release in the management skills category for the day. The book features 13 women and their entrepreneurial experiences, connected through the business platform she uses. Her chapter is titled “Embracing Your Inner Butterfly” and details her journey into the coaching business.

While Katie has excelled in her company for the past 16 years and is grateful for those experiences, she also already sees great rewards in her business and is excited to one day make it her full-time work. And though she resonates with other divorcees, Katie said some of her coaching content appeals to all women as they celebrate and support one another through life.

“When you get that message from somebody that says ‘this is just what I needed when I needed it and it’s going to help me move forward,’ that’s rewarding. I have one client that’s been with me for a year and a half, and every so often we do a journey back to the past to where she has been to where she is now, and seeing someone else really embracing that power they have within them is so good,” says Katie.

“This has made me a totally different person. To hear my daughter say, ‘Mommy, I want to be like you and help other women,’ that’s when you know you’re making a difference.”

 

School of Christian Studies

While stationed in Alaska with the US Army in November 1996, Joe Bachota was led to faith in Christ by a staff sergeant from Georgia while doing war games in California. If God could set that connection up, Joe knew it was a significant moment.

So it really didn’t surprise him that Joe felt God call him to preach a few years later, after speaking at an African American church in Fayetteville, N.C., while at his fourth duty station. When he was transferred to Korea in 2001, he felt the Lord nudge him in reminder of his calling, but he was unsure what steps to take. He found an American church off-base and joined, signing up for their

minister-in-training program as well.

“I gave my initial sermon in that church in Korea at the watchnight service on December 31, 2001, and I’ve really been preaching all over the world since then,” noted Joe, a two-time graduate of the School of Christian Studies. “Four combat tours later – three in Iraq and one in Afghanistan – and I finally had my education in ministry.”

Joe earned his associate’s degree while in the Army but found nothing available on base in the ministry area, so he waited on the bachelor’s degree. In 2008, when he was transferred to Hawaii, he found the education office and 51吃瓜网视频 Baptist, and the Bachelor of Christian Ministry fit his needs perfectly. Working classes in around his busy Army role, he finished the BCM in 2011 and started on the master’s degree one class at a time, graduating with the MCM in 2015. He continued to use his calling.

“I pastored a church in Iraq on my first tour, and was an assistant pastor at my church in Hawaii,” recalled Joe. “I got out of the Army in 2015, then in 2019 became a chaplain/pastor for homeless

veterans in North Carolina and served about 90 people. 51吃瓜网视频 has helped me get these chaplain jobs, and their training has had a big hand in helping me accomplish all of this.”

Budget cuts unfortunately left Joe without that position, and he recently joined Marketplace Chaplains to minister to businesses who request their services for their workforce. In that role, he ironically works weekly with the employees of an alcoholic beverage company.

“The owner is a Christian and wants to make sure that his employees have the best mental health support. So he asks that a chaplain come in to minister to his people,” explained Joe. “I’m forming really good social connections with people and get to see boots-on-the-ground the problems people are facing, especially in a specific area. I’m also building trust and camaraderie that opens doors in the community as well. It helps me help people walk through their problems, and that’s something I love to do.”

Joe is open to opportunities there in Wake Forest to serve as the Lord leads. He’s written two books, both available on Amazon, and has a YouTube Channel where he shares biblical insights, titled “Walking through the Scriptures with Joseph Bachota.” But his main goal remains.

“I would love to pastor a church traditionally. That’s my heart, my goal and what I believe I’m called to do,” he said.

 

School of Creative Arts

For a veteran sports broadcaster, there’s not much that beats calling a major championship. Jeremy Bryant reached that pinnacle this spring when he was play-by-play announcer as the Angelo State Rams baseball squad won its first NCAA Division II national championship.

An employee of Foster Communications in San Angelo, Texas, Jeremy has worked for the company since 2001, officially as sales executive and sports director. In that role, he sells advertising for four different stations and coordinates coverage of the city’s high school sports matchups between

himself and a small group of broadcasters. And since Foster has had the exclusive rights to ASU sports since 1990, they handle primarily the Rams football, basketball and baseball games over the radio.

Since going to a remote role from Louisiana in 2020, Jeremy has admittedly covered fewer games, and when their usual baseball home announcer could not make the College World Series games, he jumped at the chance to fill in.

“No doubt this was one of the highlights of my career. I’ve done well over 2,000 games for Angelo State, and it was always a dream to call a national championship,” said Jeremy. “I’ve been to all six World Series appearances and was glad to be there for this one.”

A 1999 mass communications graduate, Jeremy honed his craft as a student at 51吃瓜网视频, serving as manager at KWLD his junior and senior years and writing for the Trailblazer student newspaper as well as playing JV basketball. Getting to call Pioneers and Flying Queens games was a highlight as a student, and he was grateful for mentors.

“I surrounded myself with believers who were supportive of me,” he said, noting Danny Andrews, Tom Hall and his first boss, Tony Ricketts, among those. “When I talk to kids in high school or college, I tell them that most sportscasters were all in the exact same place they were and most

people are going to help you out and get you where you want to be. It’s all about connections and networking.”

Jeremy has been honored over the years for his work. He was named the Lone Star Conference’s Outstanding Broadcaster of the Year in 2019, the sixth time to win the award since 2006. Not too bad for a kid who learned to love the art while listening to Colorado Rockies games on his Walkman while mowing lawns.

And that last call is something he’ll never forget. Going into the ninth inning, ASU was leading Rollins (Fla.) 6-2. After Rollins scored a run, the Rams brought in one of their starters to the mount.

“This guy was national pitcher of the year, but he was so amped up he couldn’t throw a strike. He walked three in a row and they scored three runs,” he recalls. “So now the bases are loaded and its 6-5. The tying run is on third base. I’m just trying not to cry like everybody else and keep it together. I couldn’t sit down. When he struck out the last guy it was pretty cool.”

 

Don A. Williams School of Education

The pronouncement that he wasn’t “college material” by a high school teacher spurred a young Ricardo Garcia to prove her dead wrong. Now three college degrees later, Dr. Rick Garcia is using his platform as superintendent in the Tulia (Texas) ISD to ensure that students have access to education without barriers.

A native of Brownfield, Dr. Garcia continued his education at Texas Tech, first pursuing an

accounting major before being motivated by his own experience with a mentor coach to switch to education.

“I wanted to be the next Bobby Moegle,” laughed Dr. Garcia, referencing the famed Lubbock baseball coach. “I had a baseball coach that took me under his wing, and he is part of the reason I wanted to go into education.”

Following his career map, Dr. Garcia started in Lubbock ISD as a teacher and coach in junior high, then at Lubbock High, then became an elementary assistant principal. He then served as principal in the Roosevelt district before Plainview ISD recruited he and wife Dr. Edna Garcia to head north. He became Director of Operations in 2007, then CFO in 2013 and assistant superintendent in 2018.

Along the way, he earned a Master of Education degree from 51吃瓜网视频’s Lubbock campus in 2001, with Edna earning hers in 2003. He then pursued a doctoral degree from Capella University, completing that in 2017.  Shortly thereafter, he began looking at opportunities to move into the higher role.

“I became a member of the Association for Latino Administrators and Superintendents and in 2019 was in a cohort of 15 aspiring superintendents. We traveled around to meet education commissioners in different states and saw large and small school districts and how they worked,” noted Dr. Garcia. “We saw the common thread was about accessibility and equity, and removing barriers. We saw that our West Texas kids could do it too. That network of leaders encouraged me that it was time to move on.”

Around that time, Tulia had an opening for assistant superintendent, and Dr. Garcia got the role in July 2021. A few months later he was named interim superintendent, then officially promoted to the job in February 51吃瓜网视频. It’s been rewarding to lead change in the small district with around 900 students and to empower his workforce of 220, which includes his wife as executive director for

learning and innovation.

“We’ve been working really hard with culture and instruction, and we may not know it all but no one is going to outwork us,” he says. “I’ve enjoyed being able to build capacity within our administrators and students and developing relationships. I love seeing success in students and teachers. If you knew Rick Garcia in high school, there’s no way he should be where he is now. Because of that, we are such proponents of education.”

The evidence is clear: The Garcias’ son, Isaiah, is in his second year of medical school at Tech, and Dr. Garcia enjoys teaching adjunctly for Texas Tech in his capacity-building mode. He says the cultural change at Tulia is already making an impact on the district’s staff and student retention.

“My mantra has been a quote, ‘Do today what others won’t do so you can do tomorrow what others can’t do,’” said Dr. Garcia, who has led worship at both a Lubbock and Plainview church for many years. “It’s important to pass that along to our students to encourage them to not let anything hold them back from doing good things.”

 

School of Languages & Literature

Looking back on her graduate studies and her current impact, Dr. Deborah I. Hare-Workman can’t help but think of the biblical prayer of Jabez in 1 Chronicles 4, where he asks God to increase his territory. Similarly, Deborah feels she is an example of that, benefiting first from 51吃瓜网视频’s influence on her life and now able to impact far larger numbers.

Deborah earned the Master of Arts in Humanities degree in 2018 through 51吃瓜网视频’s online campus. But before that, she was already well into a career in education, starting as a school librarian then into teaching children with special needs in the classroom.

“I especially enjoyed when my students with autism began to communicate, especially when they

did so vocally,” she said. “My next challenge was working with students in special education whose native language was not English and developing their communication skills.”

Today, Deborah teaches primarily K-12 multilingual students in English Language Development (ELD) for the Lincoln Intermediate Unit in New Oxford, Pa. She enjoys both relating with her students and discovering how authors manipulate language in various contexts to establish meaning.

“I love annotating texts and finding the way that morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences connect and form a whole text,” she said, noting that 51吃瓜网视频’s Structures of Language course was instrumental in helping her understand how language works. “When my students make their own language discoveries, it is evidence they are successfully interpreting texts.”

A resident of Pennsylvania, Deborah was not familiar with 51吃瓜网视频 until her son, JP N. Ivey, enrolled to earn his bachelor’s degree at the San Antonio campus while serving in the Air Force. The graduate degree in humanities fit her interests and background, and enrolling at the same time was something they could share.

She segued easily into a doctoral degree in English Pedagogy at Murray State University, learning about functional linguistics as purposeful communication beyond grammar, and she found the implications in distinguishing the content of ELD from English and Language Arts fascinating. Naturally, this led to a fascination in curriculum for ELD, and she was also needing a practical project for her doctoral degree.

Deborah said she learned that the Lincoln Intermediate Unit where she serves as ELD Specialist was planning to write a curriculum, and she petitioned her supervisor to be involved with that. In return, she was invited to lead the project and has been involved for the last year in the work. The curriculum will be implemented in the new 2023-24 school year, and she hopes it will be embraced as both valuable and usable.

All of this, she says, can be traced to her growth in content knowledge of the English language and literature while studying at 51吃瓜网视频. She also believes her knowledge in the Word of God grew during that time.

“My time at 51吃瓜网视频 was a time of growth and exploration that has greatly enriched my life and, I feel, the lives of my students and my colleagues who I am delighted to serve,” said Deborah.

 

Kenneth L. Mattox School of Mathematics & Sciences

A pair of Pioneers are keeping the people of Plainview and Post, Texas, healthy through Hometown Pharmacy locations in the two cities. Both owned by Alisa Prayor, the pharmacies are true local entities who know their customers and their families by face.

“It’s nice to know people’s names and what medications they are on. I like the personal relationship

with them,” said Daniel Capps, a 2016 graduate who serves as pharmacist at the Plainview location. “It’s a smaller community, so everyone knows everybody. I like that a lot.”

Daniel first got his taste of the hometown feel as a student at 51吃瓜网视频, working for Alisa his senior year to get some experience before heading to Texas Tech School of Pharmacy in Amarillo while studying the top 200 medicines. A longtime fan of science classes, he developed an interest in pharmacy through a church elder in the field. 

Knowing he could not handle the blood and fluids involved in being a doctor, Daniel decided pharmacy was a better fit for his interests, and he visited 51吃瓜网视频 on recommendation from some older high school friends who attended. The reputation of the School of Math and Sciences and the rigorous course of study served him well.

“They helped prepare me pretty well. The teachers there really expected a lot of you and you learned the material so you could pass the tests and do well,” he said. “I had some great mentorship there with all the professors and other classmates, and it helped solidify all the science knowledge that I needed.”

After earning his Doctor of Pharmacy degree in 2020, Daniel set out on the job hunt, encouraged by

his wife to reach back out to Hometown. Alisa wasn’t necessarily looking, but she remembered the quiet 51吃瓜网视频 student and decided maybe some help was needed. With Daniel settled into the reins of the Plainview location, she could focus her attention on the Post pharmacy, knowing her customers are getting great care in both places.

For Alisa, pharmacy came a little later in life as she enrolled for her undergraduate degree at 51吃瓜网视频 after being out of school 12 years. She loved math and science and had an interest in the healthcare field, and after conversations with other coeds pursuing pharmacy thought it would also suit her.

Armed with recommendation letters from faculty members at WBU, she got accepted to the Southwestern Oklahoma State University pharmacy program and set up partial residence in Weatherford, making visits home to Plainview every other weekend to catch up with family.

She crammed in coursework, finishing in two and a half years, then went to work at the Plainview Walmart pharmacy. After stints at UMC in Lubbock and Covenant Hospital, she worked at Pinnell Drug before purchasing a store in Post and working there. When Pinnell closed, she saw the chance to open a location back in Plainview, and Hometown was born.

Though she admitted she wasn’t looking for a pharmacist when Daniel reached out, she said the arrangement has been great for both communities.

“Daniel’s been a real blessing to us. He has a good rapport with the customers and staff,” she said, noting that she shares his sentiments exactly about the rewards of her work. “For me, it’s building relationships with the people and getting to know them. You know their families too, and for me, helping them get well or maintain their health and being a part of their lives is special.

“Keeping those family connections is special too. You see them at church or at the grocery store. At an independent pharmacy, you really do know the people.”

 

Ben & Bertha Mieth School of Nursing

Justin Dittman has long desired a career helping people, but it was a stint in the armed forces facility after an injury in Iraq that steered him toward the medical field. After a medical discharge from the Marines, Justin returned to his hometown of San Antonio and ended up working in the oilfield to support his family.

When a back injury put him out of that work, he decided it was time to focus on his education,

unsure if he could handle the load at his age. He earned a Medical Assistant certification, then started an LVN program before the program suddenly shut down. He knew about 51吃瓜网视频 from a family member who worked at the San Antonio campus, and she reminded him gently that they offered a full nursing program.

“I took some basic courses, then jumped into the nursing program. I just realized more and more that this is what I wanted to do,” said Justin. “But it was a tough battle, and I was working 60 hours a week at University Hospital while going to school full-time. I didn’t get much sleep those years.

“I battled so hard just to graduate, and it was a huge accomplishment for me. I’m the first in my family with a degree.”

In 2020, Justin completed his Bachelor of Science in Nursing at the top of his class and with Sigma Theta Tau honors, then jumped into a field that was akin to a warzone as COVID was in full throttle. He stayed at University Hospital for a time, then moved into travel nursing to help meet the acute needs in bigger cities up north.

After a brief stint, he returned home and went to work for Christus Children’s Hospital, where he is a float RN, helping in any pediatric area where he’s most needed. And this tattooed, bearded Marine veteran who once feared being able to handle the schoolwork is settling in perfectly and loving his tiny patients.

“(Nursing) is way more than I hoped it would be. Once I really got into it, this has been the most

rewarding career I’ve ever had,” he says. “Every day when I come home, I am proud and happy for the decision I made. There’s no such thing as a bad day in pediatrics.”

Justin’s patients must collectively agree that the professional fits him well. In May, he earned the hospital’s Daisy Award, a national award recognizing one nurse per quarter for excellence by facility. The award is based on patient nominations, which Justin got to read. In presenting the recognition, his CEO noted that while most nurses get 1-2 nominations in the quarter, Justin had 11.

“It brought a real tear to my eye as I got to read them and remember the families,” said Justin, himself a father of seven. “When you get this from patients you deal with day in and day out, it makes you realize you are doing something right and making a difference in somebody’s life, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

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