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Cindy Barnes Hayden '99, counsel, with new Supreme Court Justice Alito, Feb.'06. |
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Sessions' plan will allow all state or private tuition savings and pre-paid plans to be tax-free. It also will allow private colleges and universities to establish pre-paid tuition plans. "This will give families an extra incentive to be prudent savers for their children's education," said Sessions. "This tax relief plan could produce billions in savings for college in the years to come."
Under Sessions' plan, tax-free treatment would be extended to all plans; state savings and pre-paid tuition plans would become tax-free in calendar year 2002; pre-paid tuition plans established by private colleges and universities would be extended tax-deferred treatment starting in calendar year 2002, and private pre-paid tuition plans would also become tax-free starting in calendar year 2004.
All 50 states have enacted pre-paid tuition or college saving plans, which allow parents to pay prospectively for their children's tuition at participating institutions. The plans are tax deferred, meaning the IRS can't tax them until the student enrolls in college and begins to draw on the investment. Sessions' proposal would make all such plans exempt from federal taxes.
There are more than 50,000 children enrolled in Alabama's pre-paid college tuition plan. According to the Alabama Treasurer's Office, the plan's trust fund has in excess of $530 million. Last year, the trust fund paid out more than $13 million in benefits for participants to attend college.
Alabama recently enacted a college savings plan. Interest earned on the money in such a plan also will receive tax-free treatment as a result of Sessions' proposal.
Huntingdon has several attorneys and judges
in the news. Thanks to John Williams for these brief notes.
Kristi Lee, former assistant to Sen. Sessions, nominated to a federal judgeship, has been a federal magistrate for Baldwin and Mobile counties. Her career included being an attorney and counsel to the Senate investigations committee.
Leura Garrett Canary is the US attorney for middle Alabama, (replacing Redding Pitt who spoke to our fieldwork class.) Her husband Bill Canary is a Republican campaign consultant and Business Council of Alabama leader, who has also spoken to our class.
Jan Shackleford (graduate in History & English) is now a judge in Pensacola.
Susan White Bennett '70 has
been appointed Director of Asia and European Programs for The Freedom Forum,
a nonpartisan international foundation “dedicated to free press, free speech
and free spirit.” In this position, she will develop and conduct
programs in the United States that focus on media issues in Asia, Europe
and the former Soviet Union and will work with Freedom Forum centers in
London and Hong Kong.
Bennett joined The Freedom Forum as director of communications in 1999 after serving as editor and writer of USA Today’s editorial page, specializing in aviation safety and foreign affairs. She had previously held positions as a national correspondent for Knight-Ridder newspapers where she covered Congress, presidential politics, and the State Department from 1987 to 1994. As a diplomatic correspondent, Bennett accompanied Secretaries of State James Baker and Warren Christopher to more than seventy countries, writing about arms control, the collapse of communism, the Persian Gulf War, and the Middle East for the chain of thirty U.S newspapers and two hundred wire clients. In 1989, Bennett was awarded the Olive Branch Award from New York University for “outstanding coverage of international security” as a member of Knight-Ridder’s foreign affairs team.
From 1981 to 1987, Bennett worked as Washington correspondent for the Philadelphia Daily News, covering Congress, the Pentagon and presidential politics. She was cited by Philadelphia Magazine as “Best Washington Correspondent.”
A native of Memphis, she began her journalism career with UPI in 1975 and was named bureau chief in Memphis six months later. There she covered politics, college and professional sports and, of course, the death of Elvis. She also dispatched throughout the South to cover riots, natural disasters and other national news stories for UPI. In 1980, she was named state editor and Richmond bureau chief for UPI in Virginia.
She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, former board member of Women in International Security and former president of the State Department Correspondents Association. She has been a commentator on CNN, BBC, NPR, C-Span and the Canadian Broadcasting Network and a guest lecturer for the Poynter Institute, Foreign Service Institute, National War College, Princeton, and numerous other colleges and universities.
Reese McKinney '72
Note: Judge McKinney was elected in November
2000 to a full term. -- JRTL.
Judge Reese McKinney served twenty years as the administrative assistant to Mayor Emory Folmar, and was appointed Montgomery County Judge of Probate in 1998. He won his bid for reelection in November, 2000. A member of the City's Committee of 100, McKinney received the Hixson Fellowship Award, one of Kiwanis International Foundation's highest honors, and serves on the Steering Committee for the State Republican Party as well as on many local and state boards.
Montgomery Judge of Probate Reese McKinney '72 told Huntingdon business students during his address at the Huntingdon Talks Business lecture series, that everything “just clicked” during his time at Huntingdon. He spoke of the small classes and personal attention being a perfect match for his undergraduate needs. Since graduating, Judge McKinney has spent most of his life working in careers with real estate and public service, which he told the students he has “come to love.” He encouraged all students to serve their communities in any way possible.
Appointed as probate judge in 1998 by the
governor, Judge McKinney said that he has applied business principles of
inverting the organizational pyramid to serve the population at large first.
In his three years in this position, Judge McKinney eliminated the fee
to renew automobile tags by mail, initiated boat license renewal by mail,
set up satellite probate offices in more remote areas of the county, brought
the probate office to the Internet by setting up a
web page, and modernized payment opportunities
by allowing customers to use credit cards to cover fees.
The Montgomery county probate office is the largest in the state, handling more than 400,000 transactions a year, including 1500 probate cases and estates, and more than 64,000 deeds, mortgages, judgments, easements and property filings. In addition, the office handles business licenses, automobile registration, drivers’ licences, boat, hunting and fishing licenses, and name changes.
In 2005, Judge McKinney set up an elections office with the latest optical scan technology for secure and reliable voting, a huge improvement for the voters' experience, since it eliminated lines and delays while enhancing security.
Elizabeth Couey Smithart '86, of Union
Springs, Ms. Smithart earned her Juris Doctorate at the University of Alabama
in 1989. A solo practitioner in Union Springs since 1998, she worked
formerly with the firm of Jinks, Smithart, Jackson & Daniel.
She is the chair of the Quality Assurance Committee for the Bullock County
Department of Human Resources, a member of the Governor's Black Belt Action
Commission and Education Committee co-chair, vice president of the Bullock
County Development Authority, a member of the board for Bullock County
Public Schools Foundation, and a graduate of Leadership Alabama, Class
XIV.
Marcus Melton graduated Huntingdon College in 1991 with a BA in Accounting. After a few years in a small business in Alabama, he accepted a graduate assistant position in the M.P.A. program at George Washington University, and received his degree in 1999. His studies in public administration enabled him to work as a policy evaluator at GAO, and now as a public sector senior consultant with KPMG, LLP, here in Washington, DC.
He writes, "I was pleased and surprised that Huntingdon is now offering public administration as an undergraduate program. It appears from your web page that the program is off to a great start. Please let me know if I can be a resource for you or your students."
Marcus returned to Huntingdon to speak at a political science student forum -- where he met Amy Hulsey, now an adjunct accounting professor, his classmate and prom date from HC.