The Danville Schools Education Foundation & Alumni Association will be hosting a Distinguished Alumni Induction Ceremony on Saturday, Sept. 28 from 7-9 p.m. at Gravely Hall Performing Arts Center, located at Danville High School.
The event will consist of an awards ceremony and reception, along with refreshments.
Tickets can be purchased at givedanville.org or at the door. They are $20 for adults and $10 for children ages 5-18. Younger children will receive free admission.
Information about Danville High School alumni being honored, and recipients of the Friend of the Admirals and Anchored in Tradition honors, is included below. Information is provided by the individuals and/or their families and has been condensed slightly for brevity.
Caudill was CEO of Farmers National Bank from 2002-2020. He worked there for 40 years and remains on the bank’s board of directors. He has been married since 1981 to Melissa Montgomery-Caudill. They are the parents of Claire, Bruce, and Rob, and the grandparents of Brooks and Josie Johnson. Caudill graduated with a degree in business administration from the University of Kentucky.
His involvement with additional boards and organizations is listed below.
Powell is president of Stuart Powell Ford-Mazda. Some of her fondest memories at DHS include being a member of the Marching Admiral Band, playing on the girls golf team and working on the yearbook staff. She went on to pursue a bachelor in fine arts degree at Texas Christian University (TCU) in advertising and communication.
She stayed in the Dallas-Ft. Worth and Atlanta areas for some time as art director for both local and national ad agencies.
In 1989 her father, Stuart Powell, encouraged her to join the family automobile business
in Danville. She joined the business, enjoyed it and enrolled in the National Automobile Dealers Association Dealer Academy, where she graduated in 1991. Day-to-day contact working side by side with her father was very gratifying for her.
Powell, now President of Stuart Powell Ford-Mazda after her father’s death in 2017, stays involved in the community.
She serves on the Danville-Boyle County Airport Board and the Farmer’s National Bank Board. She is a past member and chairman of the Danville-Boyle County Humane Society, Pioneer Vocational Services, Danville-Boyle County Chamber of Commerce and Danville-Boyle County Industrial Foundation.
She has been a member of a band, chapter adviser for Alpha Delta Pi sorority at Centre College and remains a member of First Christian Church.
The dealership continues as an active participant in its long history and tradition of supporting numerous organizations, charities, and arts organizations.
Danville Police Department Police Chief Tony Gray is a proud “Danvillian” who grew up on McMillian Court. In 1984, He attended the University of Kentucky for two years after graduating from DHS. He briefly worked at Hitachi and Corning Glass companies in Harrodsburg, while working part-time as an employee of the Danville-Boyle County Parks and Recreation Department.
Today, Gray continues to officiate basketball and baseball games from high school to small colleges. He has officiated several Kentucky state tournament championships in basketball and baseball and also officiated four college NAIA Division II Men’s National Basketball Championship games. In 2004, he was named the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s Basketball Official of the Year.
In 1995, Gray joined the Danville Police Department as a police officer and worked as a patrol officer until 1997. He then worked as a detective until 2003 and continued to move up the ranks to administrative sergeant, and assistant chief of police. In 2011, he was sworn in as the first Black chief of police for the city of Danville.
He has served nearly 30 years with the Danville Police Department. From working with Secret Service on two Vice Presidential debates to assisting with the Soul of Second Street Festival, Gray considers it an honor to serve his town in all ways.
Gray is a proud father. He has two children, Megan and Brandon, who he shares with Valerie Carrico Gray. Megan is a 2023 graduate of the University of Kentucky, and works at UK Hospital, and Brandon is a 2024 graduate of the University of Kentucky’s School of Engineering.
Hughes attended Bate School from the first grade through his sophomore year. He earned the nickname "Meadowlark" while playing basketball in the gym. He was a part of Danville High School’s integration and dropped out of high school in 1966 after experiencing several difficulties.
He returned to Danville High School in 1967 at the intervention of Mr. Jerry Boyd and graduated to a standing ovation in 1968. During his time at Danville High School, his musical career took off, and his combo Meadowlark and the Mystics won the Crusade for Children 1968 combo contest. The group performed in the crusade in September 1968.
Hughes joined the Marines in October of that year and was deployed in Vietnam from April 1969 to March 1970. After returning from service, he worked in several different fields, including construction, security and factory work.
He continued his musical career as a DJ and front man with different groups. At 76, he still performs in those capacities. Hughes recalls the destruction of the business district on South Second Street and the taking of the black neighborhoods by the urban renewal project in the early 1970s, and wanted to tell that story. This came about in the birth of the Danville-Boyle County African American Historical Society.
He has led the organization as president since its beginning in 2013. In 2015, he created the Soul of Second Street Festival. The festival has won several awards over the years. In 2017, Hughes was selected as citizen of the year by the Danville Arts Commission. Hughes said that what keeps him grounded and moving forward is God, his wife of 42 years, Brenda Baughman Hughes, and his loving family.
Heather Henson was born and raised in Danville and grew up acting and working behind the scenes at Pioneer Playhouse, the summer stock theater that her father, Eben C. Henson, founded in 1949. She continues to run it along with her brother, Robby Henson.
After she graduated from DHS, Henson left Kentucky for New York City. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in creative writing from The New School University and a master of arts degree in creative writing from the City College of New York.
After college, she began working at HarperCollins Publishers, eventually becoming a senior editor of books for young readers there. She has also written and published over 10 award-winning picture books, middle grade and young adult novels of her own.
After 17 years in New York City, Henson returned to Danville in 2003 to raise her family and continue to write. After the death of her father, and later her sister, Holly Henson, she stepped fully into the role of keeping Kentucky's oldest outdoor theater alive.
Pioneer Playhouse celebrated 75 years in the Bluegrass over the summer.
"I am incredibly proud of all we do at the Playhouse," she said. "We not only strive to bring quality productions to this region — we also work hard to engage our community in sharing our belief that art makes a difference, that art changes lives."
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In addition to the alumni who will be honored, there will also be a Friend of the Admirals honor awarded to Dr. Russ Goodwin & Dr. Larry Scott and an Anchored in Tradition honor awarded to Jane Dewey. More about these individuals is included below.
Scott and Goodwin established Danville’s first pediatric practice in the 1970s, Danville Pediatrics. They and their partners who joined them later have gone on to care for thousands of children in the community and surrounding areas.
Goodwin graduated from medical school at the University of Louisville in 1971. Later he did a pediatric residency at DC Children’s Hospital, served as a U.S. Navy general medical officer and did a pediatric residency at UofL.
He has served the Boyle County Habitat for Humanity since 2006 and was a board member for the Boyle County Farmers Market from 2017-2023.
Scott earned his bachelor’s degree at Campbellsville College. He married his high-school sweetheart, Janet Lemmon, in 1965. They moved to Ohio to become teachers before moving back to Campbellsville.
Scott was accepted to University of Louisville Medical School in 1969 and went on to complete his residency at Children’s Hospital from 1973-1976. During his time in residency, Scott was looking for towns and communities that were in need of pediatrics.
One town stuck out to him on his search, Danville. Despite having Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center, there was no designated pediatrics office or unit for the children of Danville.
In 1976, the family made the decision to move to Danville and open the first pediatrics office in the area.
One year later, Dr. Goodwin and his wife, Margo, decided to join the practice to serve the Danville community. Since the time of their opening, Danville Pediatrics has grown in size and its ability to help children across central Kentucky, adding numerous physicians and Nurse Practitioners, as well as opening a practice in Lawrenceburg and within the Danville Independent Schools.
Now that they are retired, Scott and Goodwin give their time to help organize and build houses in the community for Habitat for Humanity.
Dewey has been director of arts education for the Danville Independent Schools for 25 years.
She is an actor, director, producer and administrator as well as curriculum specialist and a leader in arts education in Kentucky, having served on numerous boards and with multiple arts-organizations.
Current board affiliations include Kentuckians for the Arts, the Sister Cities Commission of Danville-Boyle County, and the steering committee for the Danville Schools Education Foundation Friends of the Arts Committee.
She has received awards both for her acting and arts administration work, including the English Speaking Union’s Scholarship to Shakespeare’s Globe (2010), the Arts Commission of Danville-Boyle County’s Arts Citizen of the Year Award (2015), the honor of having her district receive the Kennedy Center and National School Boards Association award for outstanding arts education (2019), and the Kentucky Governor’s Awards in the Arts as Arts Educator of the Year (2021).
Valued experiences and accomplishments in the Danville Schools include numerous successful grants to fund artist residency programs, increased access to performance and exhibit opportunities, professional learning opportunities for fellow educators, partnerships with local and state arts organizations, and an annual average attendance of over 26,000 people, on-stage and in the audience, at the Gravely Hall Performing Arts Center.
Dewey’s two sons Dylan (DHS Class of 2012) and Gus (DHS Class of 2018) benefited from the Danville Schools’ focus on academics, athletics, and the arts. Dewey holds a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in acting from the University of Connecticut and a master of arts in liberal studies degree in arts and education from Skidmore College.
She lives in Danville with her husband, Matthew, and dog, Viola.
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