Berea Honors Four Alumni for Outstanding Contributions

As a student, Daniel Lee was already an award-winner. He won the T. J. Wood Achievement Award for Men, the Academic Student-Athlete Distinction Honor and Wilson Evans and Ellen Best Evans Labor Award. Lee’s success continued after Berea, graduating with distinction from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. He completed his training in neurology at Washington University in St. Louis, where he received the prestigious Irwin Levy Prize in Neurology and Neurological Surgery. Dr. Lee completed his fellowship training at Stanford University School of Sleep Medicine.

Lee led the development of groundbreaking treatments for restless leg syndrome, gaining approval of the use of both ropinirole treatment and non-dopaminergic treatment with gabapentin enacarbil by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Lee has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and served on various editorial boards and the National and International Scientific Advisory Board on Restless Leg Syndrome Research. His publication in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine led to the FDA mandating label changes for all dopamine agonists in November 2019.

He has received numerous teaching awards at Washington University Brody School of Medicine and the University of Kentucky. Lee also received the National Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society Faculty Teaching Award. He has presented at various national and international conferences including at the Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, Mayo Clinic, Case Western Reserve and the International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders in Paris.

Dr. Lee returned to Kentucky wanting to give back what the Commonwealth had generously given him. He has served as medical director of the Kentucky Neuroscience Institute at the University of Kentucky, president of the Kentucky Sleep Society, and vice president of Kentucky Neurologic Society. With his busy schedule of teaching and research, he has also set up neurology clinics to provide neurologic care to rural Kentuckians in Morehead and Frankfort and volunteered at indigent clinics and medical missions. He is also the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by commendation of the 2020 Kentucky Senate.

A Madison County, Ky., native, John Combs was first known as the son of Berea College’s legendary sports equipment manager, Elvin Combs, for whom the recently completed Elvin Combs Fieldhouse was named. John carried his father’s love of sports through college and into a storied sports career of his own.

Combs graduated from Berea College with a degree in business administration. As a student, he worked as a teaching assistant for the department of Physical Education and for baseball coach C. H. “Monarchy” Wyatt. Committed to the advancement of Berea athletics, particularly baseball, he served as an intramural umpire and referee. He also maintained the baseball field and was a scorekeeper and statistician for baseball and basketball, continuing that position after graduating.

After Berea, Combs worked in Kentucky state government for 30 years, serving in various capacities for state parks, travel and tourism, economic development and revenue, and transportation. He also was a sport official and assignor for more than five decades for softball, baseball and basketball. Later, Combs became commissioner for Kentucky ASA/USA Softball and was umpire-in-chief for USA Softball for more than three decades. During this time, he officiated 43 national softball tournaments as umpire and 15 national tournaments as umpire-in-chief. For many decades, he has served as chairman of the board and president of the Kentucky Softball Hall of Fame, and was inducted to the Hall of Fame as an umpire in 1999. In 2003, he received the National Indicator Fraternity, the highest honor awarded to an umpire.

In addition, Combs is the owner of John Combs Properties in Berea.  

Over the course of her career, which began in the late 1950s, Linda Houston Graham navigated the uncharted waters of women in business. Beginning as secretary at pest-control company, Rollins, Inc., she worked her way up into upper management.

She then joined Dwoskin, Inc., the nation’s largest wholesaler of wall coverings. In 1987, Houston Graham became vice president of RPC, Inc., which had spun off from Rollins to become a diversified holding company with interests ranging from oil and gas to recreational powerboats. In 2001, Houston Graham took on the role of vice president at Marine Products Corp., a Rollins, Inc., company that makes fiberglass powerboats, until she retired.

A native of Knoxville, Tenn., Houston Graham graduated from Berea in 1959 with a degree in English. During her time at Berea, she met another Berea student, David Graham ’59, and upon graduation they married in Danforth Chapel. The couple moved to Atlanta so that David could attend Emory University College of Dentistry. David spent a long and successful career in practice, while Linda made a home and a career. 

The couple was very philanthropic throughout their lives, and though David passed away in 2017, Linda decided to increase her giving. She began by supporting the dental clinic at Berea College, offering a host of free services for Berea’s students.

Linda and David are a true Berea love story, sharing love for each other, love for their alma mater and love for students, as they once were.  

The storied career of Sandy Reynolds in information systems and software development began with her Berea College labor assignment as a computer operator and assistant office manager. She leveraged that experience into a job at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a consulting company of more than 40,000 employees, where she worked for more than 25 years.

At SAIC, Reynolds led software development and managed programs for a wide range of government and commercial clients. Her work included leading the development of the Long-Term Pavement Performance Information Management System that is currently managed by the Federal Highway Administration. This large research project serves as the primary source of research data for evaluating pavement performance.

As a division manager, she established organizational goals and directed efforts for software quality and improvement for her 100-person software development division. This led to her division becoming one of the first in the world to achieve the Capability Maturity Model Integration Institute’s Maturity Level 5, the highest level possible. 

She ended her career at SAIC as a corporate vice president, providing executive oversight, client relationship management and strategic planning. After leaving SAIC, Reynolds provided consulting services before joining SeKON Enterprise, Inc., as a content strategist. Her role included developing winning information technology proposals worth more than $3 billion in government contracts.

Reynolds has also been heavily involved in volunteer activities, including serving as chair of congregational care at her church and supporting Bridge Refugee Services. As a volunteer for Bridge, she has received recognition for her service in setting up homes, transporting clients to appointments and providing tutoring and mentoring to youth and young adults.