Several special awards will be presented during the sixth annual Civil Rights Conference luncheon. The conference will run through Feb. 25 at UTM, with the luncheon at 11:45 a.m Feb. 23, in 206 UC.

This year’s honorees include:

• Dr. Nick Dunagan, UTM chancellor, began his work at UTM in 1973 as director of development. He currently serves as executive director of WestStar, the university’s regional leadership program for West Tennessee. He is a member of the Martin Economic Development Council, the Seven-State Delta Regional Leadership Commission and two national committees addressing student issues for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

• Theotis Robinson Jr., University of Tennessee system vice president for Equity and Diversity, grew up in Knoxville, where he was active in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. His application to attend the University of Tennessee in 1960 led to integration of UT when the board voted to change its policy, and he was the first of three African-Americans admitted. He was elected to Knoxville City Council in 1969 and, during his second term, was chosen by the U.S. State Department to travel to African countries as part of a 10-member delegation. He has been involved in Knoxville leadership initiatives and received numerous honors.

• Guy and Candie Carawan founded and manage the Highlander Research and Education Center, a residential education and research organization based on a farm in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. The center has gathered workers, grassroots leaders, community organizers, educators and researchers to address the pressing social, environmental and economic problems facing the South since 1932. Highlander has played important roles in major political movements, including the Civil Rights Movement.

• Jocelyn Dan Wurzburg, a retired attorney, is Memphis’s first professional mediator. She has served on the Tennessee Commission for Human Rights and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and many other committees relating to struggles for equality. During the Memphis sanitation strike in 1968, she was instrumental in organizing African-American and Jewish women in support of the sanitation workers’ rights.

• Rita S. Geier, an executive counselor to the federal commissioner of the Social Security Administration, was an original plaintiff in the 1968 lawsuit filed to prompt Tennessee to take an active role in desegregating its higher education institutions. Geier has served as assistant director for commercial litigation with the Legal Services Corporation at the Department of Justice and general counsel for the Appalachian Regional Commission. During this time, she supervised issues related to federal loan guaranty, Medicare and Medicaid fraud and legal services delivery to low-income people.

• Dr. Cynthia Bond Hopson, a communications associate professor at the University of Memphis, is the author of several books on Haywood County. She founded Touched by Grace Professional Communications Ministry specializing in diversity consulting and training.

• Carrie Darnell Powell and her parents helped integrate facilities and desegregate Haywood County schools in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Through her actions, other young women were inspired to get involved.

• Betty R. Douglas served as secretary to the Civil and Welfare League in Stanton for many years and was involved in struggles for equality.

• Michael S. Harper is University Professor and professor of English at Brown University. He was the first Rhode Island Poet Laureate, a term he held from 1988 to 1993. He has published 15 books of poetry and several CDs of his own poems. He is the recipient of several poetry awards and the editor of two anthologies of African-American poetry. In 1990, he received the Robert Hayden Poetry Award from the United Negro College Fund and has received several honorary doctorates. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995. In 1997, he received the Claiborne Pell Award for excellence in the arts.

• The Rev. Freddie J. Powell was a minister for 37 years in Stanton. He pastored a CME Church for nine years and a Baptist Church from 1968 until 1983. He was involved in the Haywood County Civic and Welfare League and marched in 1959 to obtain the right for African-American citizens of Haywood County to vote. He built 47 houses for residents of Stanton and started a medical clinic there.

• Hattye Thomas Yarbrough is a graduate of Lane College, Fisk University and Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. She taught elementary school in Covington for 18 years before serving for 25 years as high school librarian in the Tipton County School System. She is a member of the NAACP, NEA, TEA and is serving on Tipton County’s Habitat for Humanity board of directors.

The luncheon speaker is Theotis Robinson Jr., one of the honorees. Presentations of 2005 winners of the UTM/Jackson Sun competition, the 2006 Helen Imani Beard Award, the National Panhellenic Council Rosa Parks Unity Award and the NPHC Rosa Parks Essay Award also will be made at the luncheon.

Cost of the awards luncheon is $15. Send reservations, by Feb. 17, to Laurinda Lamb at lslamb@utm.edu or call (731) 881-3470.

For details about the conference, go to the Web site at http://www.utm.edu/staff/accarls/civilrights, or contact Dr. Alice-Catherine Carls, conference coordinator at 731-881-7472 or e-mail accarls@utm.edu.

Conference sponsors include UTM, University of Tennessee system, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., The Jackson Sun and the Obion County Public Library.