State Board Chair, Student to Speak at VGCC Spring Graduation

State Board of Community Colleges Chair Hilda Pinnix-Ragland (above, left) will be the principal commencement speaker for Vance-Granville Community College’s spring graduation exercises on Thursday, May 17. Joan D. Ayscue of Henderson (above, right), president of Vance-Granville’s Student Government Association, will serve as the student speaker.Approximately 450 students are scheduled to receive their degrees and diplomas during ceremonies beginning at 6 p.m. at the gazebo by the lake on the main VGCC campus. The graduating class is one of the largest in the college’s history.Hilda Pinnix-Ragland is a statewide leader in the business and education fields. Since 2002, Pinnix-Ragland has served as vice president, Northern Region for Progress Energy, a Fortune-250 electric and energy company headquartered in Raleigh. In that role, she has responsibility for community relations and distribution service to over 500,000 customers in a 16-county region area that includes the corporate headquarters. She also serves as vice chair of Progress Energy’s Corporate Diversity Council. Pinnix-Ragland is a member of the state Board of Community Colleges, and was elected Chair of that board in July 2005.Pinnix-Ragland joined Progress Energy, then Carolina Power & Light, in 1980 and has served in a variety of positions in the company’s communications, customer operations, customer service, economic development, management services, treasury and auditing functions. She has been an officer of the company since 1998. Before coming to CP&L, she was an auditor with Arthur Andersen & Co. and an accountant with Colgate-Palmolive, both in New York.Pinnix-Ragland received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from N.C. A&T State University in 1977 (graduating magna cum laude) and a master’s degree in business administration from Duke University in 1986.Among numerous honors and awards, she received the 2006 L. Richardson Preyer Alumni Award from Leadership North Carolina, and she was chosen by the General Federation of Women of North Carolina to be a 2006 recipient of the Women of Achievement Award. She also received the 2005 Sisters Delany Honor Society Achievement Award/ N.C. Women of Distinction, the 2005 Kappa Psi Phi Distinguished Citizen Award and the 2004 National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) Distinguished Alumni Citation of the Year Award. She received the Distinguished Alumni Award from N.C. A&T State University in 2003.In addition to the state Board of Community Colleges, Pinnix-Ragland sits on the N.C. State University African American Advisory Council, the Wake Education Foundation board of trustees, the American Association of Blacks in Energy board and the Downtown Raleigh Alliance board of directors.Pinnix-Ragland lives in Cary with her husband, Al, and daughter, Katherine.Student speaker Joan D. Ayscue of Henderson is set to graduate with an Associate in Applied Science degree in Recreation and Leisure Studies, and she has maintained a 4.0 grade point average. A graduate of Henderson High School, Ayscue worked for more than 40 years alongside her husband and sons in their family-owned textile business. However, the company was forced to close due to increased foreign imports and a decreased need for domestic textile production. Ayscue took advantage of the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance program, and joined 12 of her co-workers by enrolling at VGCC to learn new skills.While a student, Ayscue has served as president of the Student Government Association and as one of the student ambassadors. As SGA president, Ayscue has served as the student representative on the college’s Board of Trustees. She has been a member of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society and has served as a graduation marshal. She is a graduate of the North Carolina Community College Student Leadership Institute. In April 2007, Ayscue was honored by Vance-Granville as one of its two recipients of the community college system’s Academic Excellence Awards.Outside of the college, Ayscue has volunteered with a prison ministry for several years. After graduation, she hopes to work as a mentor for women who are trying to leave welfare programs or who are trying to make the transition from prison back into society. Ayscue lives on Kerr Lake with her husband, Jerry. The Ayscues have three sons and five grandchildren. Students serving as marshals for Spring Graduation will be Adrian E. Davis and Faye B. Orr, both of Henderson; Kati Brantley Ayotte and Tina Williams Holden, both of Louisburg; Shalom Ann Cherian, Dawn Mathews Tom and John Williamson, all of Oxford; and Nichelle L. Taylor of Wake Forest.