COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (July 02, 2004) — Tennessee Tech University’s College of Business Administration has awarded this year’s Louis Johnson Outstanding Alumnus Award to Cookeville businessman J. Lowell Smith.

Owner of Cookeville’s John Deere dealership since 1978, Smith graduated from TTU in 1962 with a degree in business management.

As a student at TTU, he was included in Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities, served as president of the honorary business society Sigma Iota Epsilon, commissioned as a second lieutenant in ROTC, selected as a Distinguished Military Graduate and won numerous honors as a football player.

Smith’s business has won various sales awards and qualified as a world-class dealership in 2003-04.

He has been active in various public and community organizations, including Cookeville Jaycees, Putnam County Library Board and Cookeville City Council. Smith is a trustee of both Belmont College and the TTU Athletic Foundation and a director of AmSouth Bank. He is currently president of TTU’s College of Business Administration Foundation and is a deacon at First Baptist Church.

His wife, Brenda, is a 1963 graduate of TTU’s College of Business Administration, and they have a son and daughter, both of whom are also TTU graduates. Their son, Jim, is a business management graduate, while their daughter, Shannon Hunter, earned a degree in nursing.

The Louis Johnson Outstanding Alumnus Award was established in 1980 to recognize graduates of the College of Business Administration who have made exceptional contributions in the field of business, and special awards may be given to recognize special achievements in the profession of an alumnus or participation in civic, cultural, educational, political or other activities worthwhile to society.

Nominations for the award may be submitted by any member of the College of Business Administration Foundation, and the selection of the award is made by the College of Business Administration Foundation’s Awards Selection Committee.

--Tracey LeFevre
This information posted 6 July 2004