Pharmacy alumni gear up for spring 2011 golf tourney

2010 Pharm.D. graduates (from left) Travis King, Vishal Patel and Wes Pierce celebrate their performance in last year's Pharmacy Alumni Chapter golf tournament.

ast spring, more than 60 alumni, students, faculty and friends participated in the Pharmacy Alumni Chapter’s inaugural golf tournament. Between participants and some two dozen corporate sponsors, the tournament raised more than $20,000 for the chapter’s scholarship endowment.

Among the players was Mike Worsham, a pharmacist at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Collierville, Tenn., returning to campus for his 30-year class reunion as part of 2010 Pharmacy Weekend activities. The tournament provided a great opportunity to visit with “old pharmacy professors and old friends,” Worsham said. “It was a good day. I really liked the course and that proceeds are going to scholarships. That’s a good use.”

The 2011 tournament will again be part of Pharmacy Alumni Weekend events, which are set for March 25-26.

In addition to the golf tournament, events include the annual dean’s reception, alumni and friends breakfast, awards banquet and reunion dinner, and campus CE program.

Anyone wishing to register a team to play in the tournament should return his or her form to the Alumni Affairs Office, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677. Registration forms will be mailed this month.

Prizes for tournament winners abound. There are gift certificates for the tournament champions and prizes for winners of several contests, including longest drive, putting and closest to the pin.

Last year’s championship team was sponsored by the Mississippi Independent Pharmacies Association and included Robert Salmon of Charleston, a 1967 pharmacy graduate who owns Southern Discount Drugs and The Diabetic Shoppe.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Salmon, grinning. “Ours was the oldest team, but we won anyway.”

Salmon’s Diabetic Shoppe, a mail-order business that ships supplies all over the country, was a hole sponsor of last spring’s tournament.

“I love to play, and the university’s course is gorgeous,” he said, referring to recent improvements there.

Student teams representing their pharmacy classes compete for the tournament’s class champion honor, which includes a trophy that resides in the student lounge in Faser Hall. Each year, the winning team members’ names are engraved on the trophy.

The $5,000 title sponsorship has been secured by Rite Aid, but other sponsorship opportunities for the 2011 tournament remain: Faser level ($2,500), Ole Miss Pharmacist level ($1,000), beverage cart ($500), putting contest ($200) and hole ($100).

Sponsorship benefits range from signage on tee boxes, putting greens and holes to recognition at pharmacy weekend’s awards banquet and tickets to that event, as well as tournament registration fees.

Those wishing to sponsor the tournament, a hole or contest should contact Scott Thompson in Alumni Affairs at 662-915-1878 or thompson@olemiss.edu.