Alumni Awards: Honorary Alumnus and Towel and Basin
During the Graduate Awards Chapel service on May 10, Tammy Cessna honored Sheila Lovell as an honorary alum and Stephanie Rountree with the Towel and Basin Award on behalf of the Alumni Office. Both of these women are incredible servants of our Savior and those around them, as the excerpts below make clear.
Sheila Lovell
Sheila Lovell was born in 1946 to Ruth and JT Seamands, missionaries to India with the United Methodist Global Ministries. JT and Ruth were both graduates from Asbury College, with JT also being a 1940 graduate of the seminary. At the age of 9 months, her family boarded a ship, traveling close to a month, to go back to India after being in the states for a while.
At the age of 7, Sheila and her older sister (with no adults), would board a train and travel two days to attend an international boarding school in Kodai. Sheila was able to spend several months a year with her family in Belguam, India, where the four sisters found great adventures, some including encounters with King Cobras and monkeys even getting in the house.
Sheila Lovell (left) and Tammy Cessna.
Sheila was raised in India until they all returned to Wilmore in 1959 for her dad to become the professor of Missions at the seminary. In 1963, Sheila attended Asbury College, receiving her Bachelor’s in English in 1967. She then went to the University of Kentucky, where she received her Master of Arts in English in 1968. Several years later, she met and married Jim Lovell, and they began raising their family, Jessica and JT on a farm in Wayne County Kentucky.
The family moved back to Wilmore in 1982, when Sheila began her career as the executive assistant to our incoming fourth president, Dr. David McKenna. She served him until he retired in 1994. She continued to serve the next 4 presidents; Maxie Dunnam for 10 years, Jeff Greenway for 2 years, Ellsworth Kalas for 3 years, and Dr. Tennent. Her writing skills brought her to the Advancement Team in 2013 to be the grant writer for the seminary, where she was instrumental in bringing in several million to the school. She is an author of several books. The most recent is Great is Thy Faithfulness, Asbury Seminary’s Centennial Book.
God has used Sheila to help build His Kingdom through her many gifts and skills as a dedicated employee of Asbury Seminary. She is one of those staff members who have felt called to this place, much like her parents felt called to India. Overall, Sheila has worked here a total of 41 years, and those of us who are blessed to work with her hope she continues to work here even longer.
I know you will hear it in heaven, Sheila, but I want to say it here: WELL DONE THOU GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT! If anyone deserves being inducted as an HONORARY ALUMNA of the seminary, it is YOU. So Sheila, because of your sacrificial
service and love for our community, we grant you the official title of HONORARY ALUMNA OF ASBURY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
Stephanie Rountree
At every Asbury Theological Seminary graduation celebration, the Alumni Office honors a graduating student from any of our Asbury Global campuses with the Towel and Basin Award. This award allows students, staff, faculty, and alumni to recognize someone who has displayed a servant’s heart in our community and in all areas of their life. This award allows us to reflect upon the heart of Christ and how embodying this heart impacts our world.
The criteria for this award is that:
1. The student demonstrates the attitude of a servant in both their lifestyle and activities.
2. The student demonstrates great promise as a servant leader.
3. The student must be a graduate in the year of the award.
Here are several excerpts from our winner’s numerous nominations:
Stephanie Rountree, the Towel and Basin 2023 recipient.
This person, from her first semester, demonstrated compassionate servant leadership in our community. From being a welcoming presence to fellow students, even when she was new herself, to serving as one of the foremost student leaders on our campus, she has consistently modeled Christlike servant leadership. She has been an encouragement and an example of what graciously living into Christ’s call to love people looks like. She is a capable leader, whether that leadership looks like standing in the front and speaking publicly, helping to organize and coordinate community events, or doing quiet work in the background that few will ever notice. She cleans up community dinners with smiles on her face. She is the first person to volunteer to work an extra shift if needed. She is intentional in making the residential experience one that is welcoming to all, regardless of race, international background, age, and more. She is intentional in checking on students. She has regular coffee dates in which she makes time to not only meet with her residents but students across campus, single and married students. She sits with people in their highest of highs and lowest of lows. She has helped numerous students transition into our community well, has been a moderating voice in countless difficult conversations, and has modeled what it looks like to love a community enough to work toward improvement and growth. She has championed the conversation about race at Asbury. She has loved this community in a self-sacrificial way and has encouraged others in both word and example to do the same. Without a doubt, her gifts of SERVICE and LEADERSHIP have already and will continue to contribute essentially to God’s work through his people to the world in every community where she goes. This year’s winner of the Towel and Basin award is: STEPHANIE ROUNTREE.
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