Biographical Text
Professor Emeritus of Curriculum and Instruction Thomas Reese Allen, Jr. (April 4, 1936- ), was born in Richmond, Virginia. Allen graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, Richmond, in 1955. He earned his B.S. in distributive education from Virginia Tech in 1961, and he earned his M.Ed., also from Virginia Tech, in 1967. In 1971, he completed requirements for the Ed. D. from the University of Georgia. Allen married the former Anna Ashley Alexander in Richmond, on February 2, 1957. The Allen's have two children, Bryan Todd (July 29, 1965-), who earned his B. A. and M. A. in Spanish from Appalachian State University, and Julie Allen Fraker (June 29, 1966-). Julie has one son, Thomas Marion (December 20, 1990-). Todd teaches English as a second language at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Dr. Allen's career began in 1961 as an assistant sales manager in the Norfolk, Virginia, office of the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Virginia. After a year with the telephone company, Allen decided to enter the teaching field, his major area of specialization. His thirty-eight years of teaching began at Martinsville High School, Martinsville, Virginia, where he served as the distributive education teacher-coordinator from 1961 to 1966. After completing his M.Ed., Allen moved to Gainesville Community College, Gainesville, Georgia, to start, in 1966, a new program in marketing education. In 1971, he accepted another new position at Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia, where he began a marketing education program for secondary education teachers. In addition, he taught off-campus graduate courses in vocational education administration throughout the state of West Virginia from 1971 to 1977. In 1977, Dr. Allen made his final academic move to Appalachian State University, where he was a professor in the Department of Business Education and Office Administration in the College of Business for twenty-three years. His major assignment was to design and develop a teaching degree in marketing education. The College of Business was reorganized in 1984, and Allen and other department members were assigned to the Management Department. In addition to teaching marketing education courses in that department, Allen taught several management courses. Allen also served as the coordinator for business offerings in the Bachelor of Technology program for the last fourteen years of its existence. Additionally, during that time, Allen taught many of the business courses to Bachelor of Technology students in cluster groups throughout central North Carolina. In his last four years at the university, Dr. Allen was assigned, for half of his academic load, as a supervisor of student teachers. Most of the student teachers were placed at Watauga High School, Boone, North Carolina. In June of 2000, Allen retired from Appalachian State University, and he and Anna moved to Kernersville, North Carolina. After spending part of three winters in Florida, they moved to Champions Gate, Florida in the spring of 2006. Allen works part-time at Disney World. Sources: Appalachian State University files and personal correspondence. -Dr. Richard D. Howe
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