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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D">Lawton Constitution<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:15.0pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#333333">FACES OF SOUTHWEST OKLAHOMA<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;background:white"><span style="font-size:24.0pt;color:black">Born to learn<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;background:white"><span style="font-size:18.0pt;color:#333333">Cameron prof an ambassador of science<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:15.0pt"><b><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#2D648A;background:white">BY TYRELL ALBIN, STAFF WRITER </span></b><b><u><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#2222FF;background:white"><a href="mailto:TALBIN@LAWTON-CONSTITUTION.COM">TALBIN@LAWTON-CONSTITUTION.COM</a> </span></u></b><b><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#2D648A;background:white"> <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:1.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Cameron University chemistry professor Elizabeth Ann Nalley knew she wanted to be a scientist when she was just a 5-year-old farm girl in eastern
Oklahoma. She started school at age 4 in rural Missouri after learning to read and write from her mother . But when her family moved to Oklahoma, state law prevented her from attending classes again until she turned 6.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">“I say I took my first sabbatical at 5 years old,” Nalley joked.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">She worked as a caretaker for a neighbor with severe arthritis and continued to read books from the local library. “I read the story of Marie
Curie and I would say she is my mentor and role model,” Nalley said. When she turned 6, Nalley went to school at Elm Grove School, a one-room schoolhouse with only 13 pupils. Nalley said she ended up learning math well above her grade level because of the
intimate environment where every grade was together. Friday afternoons meant math contests at the chalkboard in the front of the schoolroom.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Soon, she was participating in, and winning, the weekly competitions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Nalley attended Checotah High School, where she took physics and chemistry. Her chemistry teacher nominated her for a National Science Foundation
summer program the summer between her junior and senior years.</span><span style="font-size:1.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> Nalley
said there were 26 students at the summer camp — 21 boys and five girls. They studied chemical engineering for six weeks at Oklahoma State University.</span><span style="font-size:1.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> The
experience changed Nalley’s life, she said. It opened up tantalizing possibilities for her future.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">“I came back with a slide rule with my name engraved on it and tremendous inspiration to go on and become a scientist,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Nalley earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical education from Northeastern Oklahoma University and went to work as a science teacher at Muskogee
Central High School. She said her experience as a high school teacher wasn’t enjoyable, so she enrolled at OSU to work on a master’s degree in chemistry. </span><span style="font-size:1.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> As
she neared graduation, Nalley began looking for a job, but times were tough. Nalley was teaching lower-level courses at OSU when one of her colleagues, Clarence Breedlove, decided to help her out. Breedlove was the former dean of Cameron Junior College. He
called Don Owen, president of Cameron, and told him about Nalley’s job search. The next day, Nalley said, the head of Cameron’s Physical Sciences Department drove to Stillwater and interviewed her. It turned out he had taken a laboratory course at OSU under
Nalley, so they already knew one another. He offered her a professorship and she took it without ever seeing Cameron’s campus.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:1.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Nalley came to Cameron in 1969, while the
school was in the process of becoming a four-year college. The president told her if she planned to stay, she needed a doctorate in her field — preferably from an out-of-state university. While she taught at Cameron, Nalley attended Texas Women’s University,
where she earned a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1975.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:1.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Nalley has earned many accolades during her long tenure as a Cameron professor. She was the first woman to be appointed to The International
Chemical Congress of Pacific Basin Societies (Pacifichem) in 2000. The leaders of the international chemistry organization told Nalley they were hesitant to appoint her because of her gender. They warned her she would face serious discrimination when dealing
with the Japanese scientists, who were a powerhouse in Pacifichem. “I said ‘Well, I’ll make them like working with me,’” Nalley said. Nalley worked hard to establish good relations with the Japanese and scientists from all of the other Pacific basin nations.
In 2003, she was invited to be a guest of Japan’s Emperor Akihito as part of her membership in Pacifichem.
</span><span style="font-size:1.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> She gave the emperor a gift that drew upon her own
Cherokee Indian heritage, in the form of a ceramic white buffalo. With the aid of an interpreter, Nalley told the emperor the white buffalo symbolized friendship, peace, understanding, building connections between people and looking forward to a bright future.
“He was really moved,” she said. Nalley gave similar ceramic white buffaloes to some of her colleagues in the Japanese Chemical Society.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:1.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Nalley served as president of the American
Chemical Society in 2006. She remains the only Oklahoman and the only chemist from a smaller university to have ever served in the prestigious post. She was only the fifth woman to have been elected the president of the ACS. According to the American Chemical
Society’s website, “ACS is a congressionally chartered independent membership organization which represents professionals at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry and sciences that involve chemistry.”
</span><span style="font-size:1.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Nalley traveled all over the world representing the ACS
during her term.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Nalley said she is also very proud to have been named to the
<span style="background:yellow;mso-highlight:yellow">Oklahoma Higher Education Heritage Society’s Hall of Fame in 2010</span>. “In terms of where I am in Oklahoma, that was really meaningful to me,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Nalley currently holds the Clarence E. Page Endowed Chair in Math and Science Education at CU and is also a Fellow of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, among her many other accomplishments.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:1.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Outside of work, Nalley and her husband,
retired Federal Aviation Administration executive Robert Mullican, live on a ranch outside of Chickasha, where they operate an animal rescue for unwanted pets and livestock. She takes care of cattle, horses, dogs and about 60 cats every day.
</span><span style="font-size:1.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Her stepson, George Mullican, is a successful attorney
in Tulsa and a Cameron graduate.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">Nalley travels constantly to support her work for various scientific organizations and for science symposiums worldwide. Her husband often accompanies
her. Nalley, 70, said she plans to continue her work for as long as she is physically and mentally able. However, she does have plans to write a memoir someday soon.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">To suggest someone to be featured in Faces of Southwest Oklahoma, send email to </span></i><i><u><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#2222FF;background:white">faces@lawton-constitution.com</span></u></i><i><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Cambria Math","serif";color:#333333;background:white"> </span></i><i><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#333333;background:white">
.</span></i><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Monotype Corsiva";color:#1F497D">Linda Mason, Ed.D.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Coordinator of Grant Writing
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">655 Research Parkway, Suite 200<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Oklahoma City, OK 73104<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">405-225-9486 desk<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">405-706-8757 cell<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">405-225-9230 FAX<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">lmason@osrhe.edu<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">www.okhighered.org/grant-opps/<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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