Great
graduates (left to right) Clifford N. Wallace '68,
Susan Aude Fisher '76,and David P. Agnew '88
Part
II: Great Graduates of the 20th Century
By
Maggie Peeler
The list of successful 20th century Erskine
graduates is long, and unfortunately there isn't
enough time left in this millennium to write about
them all . The college has produced a number of CEOs,
business owners, college presidents, lawyers,
doctors, television news anchors and much more. The
experiences that these graduates had at Erskine may
have been unique to each individual, but the outcome
for all of them was lifetime achievement.
Erskine conferred a degree in 1974 on a man who
would become South Carolina's youngest circuit court
judge. Thomas J. Ervin has since retired from his
judgeship and is currently president of Foothills
Community Foundation, a non-profit agency in
Anderson.
Ervin praised Erskine for preparing him well for
law school and more importantly, he said, his
freshman Bible class “turned out to be a
valuable experience in terms of my Christian
education.”
Other great graduates of the 1970s include Susan
Aude Fisher and Tom Suiter. Their Erskine education
landed them jobs in the television news world.
Fisher, class of '76, is an anchorwoman for WIS TV
in Columbia. She received the YWCA's “Tribute to
Women in Industry” honor and is a member of the
Erskine Board of Trustees for Erskine.
Suiter graduated in 1971 and is the sports
director for WRAL TV in Raleigh.
Clifford N. Wallace, a 1968 graduate of Erskine,
enjoys a career in Hong Kong as the managing director
of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
(management) Ltd. The center is 257,000 sq. m. and is
Asia's premier convention and exhibition venue since
its opening in 1998, according to Wallace. It hosts
more than 2,000 events annually and employs nearly
1,100 permanent staff.
Wallace said he recalls many things about Erskine
that helped greatly in preparing him for his career.
The first things of many, Wallace said, were core
values.
“They were values that are traditional and
have had enormous impact on me personally and the way
I strive to conduct my performance in my job and in
my leadership of people,” he said.
“Integrity rings clear as the most important
core value.”
Having managed service organizations since
graduating, Wallace has had the responsibility of
delivering service through the performance of others
and delivering this service to clients and the public
in a manner which would result in competitive
advantages for the organization.
“This means practicing integrity to the point
of assuring that the organizations were integrity
driven,” Wallace said.
Wallace commended Erskine's healthy environment,
caring faculty who taught but also developed
students, dedicated staff, fairness, and uplifting
college events.
And finally, another successful graduate of
Erskine College is David P. Agnew, class of '88.
Agnew was recently recognized by the college as
1999's recipient of the Outstanding Young Alumni
Award. Agnew earned his Master of Public Policy
degree in 1990 from Harvard University's John F.
Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass. He
then served as a senior financial and economic
consultant at Price Waterhouse's International
Privatization Group.
Agnew is currently executive assistant to Mayor
Joseph P. Riley, Jr. of Charleston where he serves as
advisor to the mayor, manages city government
operations and projects, and is responsible for
dealing with a broad range of other civic and
organizational issues on behalf of the mayor.
