Special to the Enquirer

The Morgan County Schools Foundation announced the 2019 inductee class for the Morgan County Leadership Hall of Fame Jan. 28. The inductees will be recognized during a banquet March 7 at the Doubletree Riverside in Decatur. The Hall of Fame was created to promote a culture of leadership and character building within the community and schools.

The inductees are Lynn Layton, Jody Singer, Wallace Terry and John Sparkman.

Lynn Layton is the owner of Lynn Layton Chevrolet, Cadillac-Nissan and Ford in Decatur. Layton opened the number one Chevrolet dealership in Alabama approximately 35 years ago. Layton has served as past President and Board Member of 20 years to the Automobile Dealers of Alabama Association and received the General Motors Dealer of the Year award 11 times with only 100 dealers being picked from all GM dealerships.

Jody Singer is the director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. Appointed in September 2018, Singer manages one of NASA’s largest field installations, with nearly 6,000 on- and near-site civil service and contractor employees and an annual budget of approximately $2.8 billion. During her 32-year NASA career, Singer has held leadership roles of increasing responsibility in human spaceflight, technology and science flight missions programs and projects and was appointed in 2002 to the Senior Executive Service, the personnel system coveting top managerial positions in federal agencies.

Wallace Terry is the Director of Development for the City of Decatur for nine years. Terry began his service to the community by working for Security Mutual followed by Cook’s Pest Control before settling into his career as a banker at First Federal Savings & Loan Association and First American Bank in Decatur for a combined thirty-plus years. Terry has served and partnered with many community civic and non-profit organizations and served as director to many boards including the Decatur Morgan Hospital Foundation, Greater Decatur Community Foundation and others.

John Sparkman, veteran of the US Army, was the longest serving U.S. Senator from the state of Alabama, from 1946 to 1978. Sparkman also served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1936 to 1946 and led the creation of the 1943 Sparkman Act, which allowed women physicians to be commissioned as officers in the armed forces. Sparkman was instrumental in convincing the United State Department of the Army to transfer the missile development activities to the Redstone Arsenal in 1949.

The foundation will also recognize other award recipients during the celebration of leadership. The 2019 Corporate Leader of the Year award will be presented to Daikin America. The 2019 Community Leader of the Year award will be presented to Mosaic of North Alabama.

“This idea was born out of the Foundation’s desire to promote leadership in a way that our entire community can see people being celebrated who have made a difference,” said Kerrick Whisenant, Vice President of the foundation. “We hope that our students would aspire to follow these leaders and be leaders themselves.”

Doors will open the night of the event at 5:30 p.m. with a silent auction. Dinner and the program will begin at 6:30 p.m.

Tickets for the event are $50 per person and may be purchased by contacting any foundation board member, executive director, Kayla Riggs or online at www.morgancoschoolsfoundation.com. Inductees into the Hall of Fame are nominated by the committee based on their connection to Morgan County and the leadership qualities attributed to them. A nominee’s induction is confirmed by the foundation board.

The Morgan County Schools Foundation was created in 2011 as an autonomous non-profit entity to promote leadership and academic excellence in Morgan County Schools.