Release Date: Thursday, May 10, 2005

Four Terry College of Business alumni to be honored at 2006 awards banquet in Atlanta

ATHENS, Ga. — Four accomplished leaders of Georgia's business community will be honored with alumni awards from the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business on Wednesday, May 17, in Atlanta.

Three of the graduates — Joe Beverly of Thomasville, Paul Holmes of Monticello and Leo Wells of Alpharetta — were chosen for their career achievements and community leadership to receive the college's Distinguished Alumni Award. Richard Courts IV of Atlanta will receive the college's Outstanding Young Alumni Award.

The Terry College has been presenting its alumni awards since 1964. This year's awards will be presented at the college's annual spring dinner banquet, held at the Terry College's Executive Education Center in Buckhead.

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS

Joe E. Beverly is the chairman of Commercial Bank in Thomasville, Ga. Born in Thomasville in 1941, he grew up in South Florida where his family was in the produce business until he was 14. The family then returned to Thomasville, where Beverly was elected "Mr. Central High School" at Thomas County Central in 1959.

Beverly received his bachelor's degree in finance from the Terry College in 1963 and his MBA from Terry in 1964. He was a member and officer of Sigma Chi fraternity and also met his wife, Mary, a 1964 journalism graduate, at UGA.

He began his banking career with First National Bank of Atlanta in 1964 and was elected vice president in 1970. In 1972, he moved back to Thomasville to assume the duties of president and CEO of Commercial Bank. In 1977, Commercial Bank merged with Synovus Financial Corp. Beverly was elected chairman of Commercial Bank and vice chairman of Synovus in 1990. He retired from Synovus in 1996, though he remains on the board. He has served on the boards of four New York Stock Exchange-listed companies, including Synovus and Flowers Foods.

Beverly's civic involvement includes serving as president of the Thomasville-Thomas County Chamber of Commerce, president of the Brookwood School Board of Trustees, president of the John D. Archbold Memorial Hospital board of trustees, president of W. R. Milton Y.M.C.A. and chairman of the Thomasville Payroll Development Authority.

He is a past board member the University of Georgia Alumni Association and the Terry College Alumni Board. He was a member of the Leadership Georgia Class of 1973 and is a former director of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the Georgia Bankers Association. He is an elder and deacon of the First Presbyterian Church in Thomasville and a member of the Williams Family Foundation Board.

Beverly is a noted conservationist, having served as chairman of the board of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. In 2005, he was appointed to the Governor's Land Conservation Council and has served as a director of the Nature Conservancy. He was named Conservationist of the Year by the Georgia Wildlife Federation in 1998 and, in 2004, received the Rock Howard Award from the Department of Natural Resources.

J. Paul Holmes Jr. was born in North Carolina and lived there until his family moved to Georgia in 1955. He attended Northside High School in Atlanta, where he was a star football player for the 1957 state championship team. At the University of Georgia, he was a three-year letterman from 1960-62, receiving the Outstanding Lineman Award and playing in the North-South All-Star Game. He was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and graduated with a bachelor's degree in marketing.

After a brief professional football career with the Dallas Cowboys following his 1963 graduation, Holmes moved to Monticello, Ga., to run a dairy farm and work as a Farm Bureau insurance agent. Holmes entered politics and won a seat on the Jasper County Board of Commissioners, becoming the first Republican elected to office in Jasper County since Reconstruction. He was a member of the first Leadership Georgia class in 1972. He became state director of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, then in 1975 took over as state director of the Farmers Home Administration.

In 1976, Holmes became an executive at Fulton National Bank. In 1979, he and his partners founded Life of the South Insurance Co., which has grown to be one of the top 10 providers and administrators of credit insurance in the United States. He currently serves as vice chairman of Life of the South and is a board member of McIntosh Bancshares. Holmes is also co-owner of Century 21 HeartLand Realty in Monticello.

Holmes' civic involvement includes serving as a board member and chairman of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Jasper County Economic Development Authority, and membership on the boards of both Griffin Technical College and the Georgia College and State University Foundation. Holmes is a former officer of the UGA Alumni Association and remains an active member of the UGA Football Letterman's Club and the UGA Presidents Club. He is a deacon of Monticello Baptist Church.

Leo F. Wells III, founder, president and sole director of Wells Real Estate Funds and its subsidiaries, earned his bachelor's degree in economics in 1967. Under his leadership, Wells Real Estate Funds has grown to be one of the largest real estate investment companies in the United States since its founding in 1984, with more than 200,000 investors and $7 billion in assets.

Wells is a member of the Financial Planning Association and a registered principal with NASD Series 7, 24 and 63 registrations. He is a life member of the Atlanta Board of Realtors Million Dollar Club. In 2003, he was selected as a national winner of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the financial services category.

Wells' involvement with the University of Georgia includes his contribution of time and financial support to benefit the Terry College's Institute for Leadership Advancement and its students. Wells is also a major supporter of UGA's athletic programs and has funded several team chaplain positions at UGA and other schools. He is an active member of Fellowship Bible Church of Roswell, Ga., and participates in the church's international mission trips.

OUTSTANDING YOUNG ALUMNI AWARD

Richard W. Courts IV earned his bachelor's degree in finance from the Terry College in 1995. Courts joined Carter, an Atlanta-based commercial real estate firm, immediately after graduation. He now serves as a vice president in Carter's transaction services group as an office tenant representative for corporate clients, where he is consistently one of the firm's top five producers. Courts is a life member and Phoenix award recipient of the Atlanta Commercial Board of Realtors Million Dollar Club and is a past chairman of the ACBR Young Council of Realtors.

Courts' civic involvement includes Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, the Woodruff Arts Center, the Technology Association of Georgia, the Georgia Biomedical Partnership and Christ Church of Atlanta. Courts is a past board member of the Buckhead YMCA. He currently serves on the board of directors for the Fox Theater and The East Lake Foundation, and he chairs the board of Odyssey. As a member of the Terry College Alumni Board, Courts chairs the alumni task force for the college's Terry Third Thursday speaker series in Atlanta.

The Terry College of Business Alumni Board of Directors selects the alumni award winners from nominations submitted to the board. Nominations for the 2007 alumni awards are due by July 31, 2006. More information on the awards criteria and nomination process is available at www.terry.uga.edu/alumni/awards.

###