Awards

• Wilmer Cooksey, who recently retired as manager of the General Motors assembly plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, received the Lifetime Service Award from the Council of Engineering Deans of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The award recognizes Cooksey’s “longtime dedication to education for African Americans.”

Before becoming a General Motors executive, Cooksey was a professor of industrial engineering at what is now Kettering University. He continues to serve on the board of the Tennessee State University Foundation.

Cooksey is an electrical engineering graduate of Tennessee State University and holds a master’s degree in industrial engineering from the University of Toledo.

• Isaiah Hugley, the city manager of Columbus, Georgia, received the Dr. John Townsend Achievement Award from Columbus State University. Townsend was the first black student at the university.

• Irving Smith, a decorated war hero who is now serving as a professor of sociology and director of minority admissions at the United States Military Academy, received the Man of the Year Award from the Beta Alpha Alpha chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.

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