Vol. 31 No. 4 - September 8, 2026

National Baseball Hall of Famer and St. Louis Cardinals legend Ozzie Smith will visit Truman at 7 p.m. Oct. 30 in Baldwin Auditorium as part of the Holman Family Distinguished Speaker Series.

A World Series champion and 15-time All-Star, Smith put together one of the most accomplished careers in baseball history. He won 13 consecutive Rawlings Gold Gloves from 1980 to 1992, with his highlight-reel defensive plays earning him the nickname the Wizard of Oz. Smith was selected as one of the 100 Best Baseball Players of the 20th Century by Major League Baseball and recognized as the shortstop on the Rawlings All-Time Gold Glove Team. 

Offensively, Smith had 580 stolen bases and more than 2,000 career hits. His walk-off home run in the 1985 National League Championship Series helped him earn the series MVP and is immortalized in Cardinals’ history with the help of broadcaster Jack Buck’s call “Go crazy folks.” It was voted as the greatest moment in Busch Stadium history.  

Off the field, Smith was the 2001 recipient of the Walter Payton Sweetness Award, given to an athlete who has contributed to his community. Similarly, he earned the 1995 Roberto Clemente Award – Major League Baseball’s humanitarian award – as well as the 1994 Branch Rickey Award for personifying service above self. In 1992, Smith was the first athlete to receive the prestigious St. Louis Man of the Year award. He also earned a Father of the Year Honors Group Award in 1986 and the 1983 NAACP Image Award for Sportsmanship, Humanitarianism and Community Involvement.   

Smith serves on the Board of Directors of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He is also the Education Ambassador for the Baseball Hall of Fame and headlines a fundraiser, “Play Ball with Ozzie Smith,” every year in Cooperstown during Induction Weekend.

Since his playing career ended, Smith has remained active with baseball and other pursuits. He hosted “This Week in Baseball” and did color commentary on local Cardinals broadcasts. Currently, he is the host of “Cardinals Insider,” a weekly television show about the club. Away from baseball, Smith has explored multiple business ventures, including a restaurant and sports bar, a youth sports academy and medical clinics. 

Smith was cast in three theatrical productions at The Municipal Theatre in St. Louis. He had a cameo role in “Damn Yankees” in 1998, and the following year he sang and tap danced in “The Muny Goes British,” a musical revue based on songs from various Broadway musicals. In 2001 he starred as The Wizard in The Muny’s production of “The Wizard of Oz.”

Smith was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002, his first year of eligibility. He was also a member of the inaugural Cardinals Hall of Fame class in 2014. 

Tickets are free and will be available starting Oct. 1. They can be picked up downtown at the Kirksville Arts Association or in the Ruth W. Towne Museum and Visitors Center located at the corner of Franklin Street and Normal Avenue. On campus, tickets are available at the U&I Office in the Student Union Building, and in the Advancement Office, McClain Hall 205. Any remaining tickets will be available at the box office window in Baldwin Hall beginning 30 minutes before the presentation. 

The Holman Family Distinguished Speaker Series was named for Squire Paul and Meeda (Daniel) Holman by their children to honor their parents’ long association with Truman and is funded through an endowment with the Truman State University Foundation.

Alumnus Tim Grimes will be the next guest in the TRU-Entrepreneur Series with a presentation at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 25 in the Pickler Memorial Library Villhard Innovation Lab.

Grimes is a business leader, entrepreneur and technology consultant with a career focused on marketing, business process improvement, software development and organizational transformation.

A 2001 graduate of the University, Grimes earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in business marketing. During his time at Truman, he was actively involved in both the academic and campus communities. He was selected as violist for the President’s String Quartet, served as a student advisor, was elected to Student Senate and worked as advertising manager for The Index, Truman’s student newspaper.

Following graduation, Grimes moved to Austin, Texas, to begin his career with Apple in the company’s Education Sales division. As one of Apple’s top higher education sales representatives, he worked with colleges and universities to explore new ways of integrating technology into the educational experience. One of his most memorable projects was helping launch an innovative initiative at Oklahoma State University in which students in the music program received an Apple iBook and iPod as part of their educational program.

Grimes’ success in higher education sales led to a promotion into field sales, where he worked directly with K-12 school districts throughout Missouri and Illinois. During this period, he helped several schools develop and implement early one-to-one technology programs that provided MacBooks to individual students as an integral part of their curriculum.

After Apple, Grimes joined Cox Automotive, working with automobile dealerships to improve the accuracy, quality and speed of their online vehicle merchandising. By helping dealers get inventory online as much as several days faster than traditional processes, his work contributed to improving vehicle turn – the speed at which dealerships were able to sell their inventory.

Grimes’ success in automotive digital marketing led to an opportunity to consult with Toyota dealerships throughout the Midwest. Working directly with franchised Toyota dealers, he helped modernize their digital presence and improve how they represented their businesses online. His work encompassed dealership websites, vehicle inventory merchandising, online reputation management, Facebook and Google advertising, search engine optimization and optimization of dealership listings on third-party automotive marketplaces.

Through these experiences, Grimes developed a strong interest in the intersection of marketing automation, technology, software development and business process improvement. That interest ultimately led him to launch Insanely Great Enterprises, a consulting and software development company focused on helping organizations simplify operations, automate processes and develop custom technology solutions tailored to the way they do business.

Through Insanely Great Enterprises, Grimes was given the opportunity to assume the role of managing director for Mirage Spa Service and Supply, a portfolio company of one of his clients. In that role, he oversees the day-to-day operation of the company, including marketing, customer experience, technology, and the development of software and business systems supporting the organization.

Working alongside a talented team of professionals, Grimes has helped lead a significant turnaround at Mirage Spa Service and Supply. The company has achieved substantial year-over-year revenue growth, strengthened its reputation throughout the St. Louis market, and is increasingly recognized as a go-to resource for complicated and difficult spa repair and service issues. Grimes credits much of that progress to the expertise, dedication and professionalism of the people with whom he has had the opportunity to work.

Across his career, Grimes has been particularly drawn to situations where technology, marketing and operational improvement can come together to transform an organization. Whether helping schools rethink technology in the classroom, dealerships modernize their digital businesses, or small companies improve the systems behind their operations, he enjoys finding practical ways to make organizations work better.

In addition to presenting as part of the TRU-Entrepreneur Speaker Series, Grimes will be meeting with classes in marketing and strategic management.

The Greenwood Interprofessional Autism Center has been selected as the philanthropy partner for this year’s Homecoming festivities.

For years, students and organizations have used Homecoming as an opportunity to support philanthropic causes. Previous fundraising activities have included sponsored nights at local restaurants, pie an organization member, sticker sales, concert nights, game nights and other unique and fun events.

Greenwood is an institution that provides services supporting the needs of people within the autism community. The clinic offers services from ages two to adulthood, utilizing applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy and a partnership through the University, which provides internship placements for students enrolled in the ABA graduate program. Money raised through this year’s Homecoming events will aid the development of the facility and the needs of those it serves.

Truman will celebrate Homecoming the weekend of Oct. 24. More information about events can be found at homecoming.truman.edu.

Information Technology Services will soon oversee a two-phase process designed to ensure all Truman websites meet new accessibility guidelines. 

All Missouri state agencies are required to comply with Federal Section 508 guidelines requiring electronic and information technology be accessible to people with disabilities. Recently, these requirements were combined with other guidelines and standards both in the U.S. and abroad, including standards issued by the European Commission, and with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), a globally recognized voluntary consensus standard for web content and ICT.

All University websites, including those maintained by individual offices, departments or other Truman-affiliated organizations, will need to follow these new guidelines. ITS is currently in the process of identifying and notifying personnel responsible for maintaining University websites. Those individuals will be contacted directly for next steps in preparation for phase one of the transition. The two-phase process will begin Sept. 14. 

Phase One
Phase one is targeted at updating publicly available WordPress web content, webpages or posts. This is primarily HTML content which does not require a user ID or password for site visitors to gain access. Typically, these are pages maintained at department levels. Phase one is schedule to be completed by Nov. 2. 

Phase Two
Phase two will focus on making all publicly available documents or files – including PDFs or videos – compliant with the new guidelines. Anyone who maintains a University webpage is encouraged to review the content now and remove any material that may be out of date and no longer used, particularly expired documents such as PDFs. This will make the conversion to compliance easier and faster. Phase two will begin Nov. 2. 

There will be future updates regarding guidance on social media compliance, course remediation and third-party content accessibility requirements, and more detailed information and migration plans will be made available on accessibility.truman.edu.

The Robert L. Gould Scholastic Award is an opportunity for students of all majors to submit a research paper for the chance to win up to $10,000.

For more than 30 years, SS&C Technologies, a financial technology company, has sponsored the award to recognize outstanding university students who produce academic papers on topics related to investment management strategies, theories and trends.

The topic for this year questions if investors should expand access to tokenized assets, asking students to evaluate portfolio benefits, risks and regulatory challenges in modern financial markets. Evolving financial markets have influenced institutional and high-net-worth investors to increasingly allocate capital to tokenized assets and blockchain-based securities. Simultaneously, advances in blockchain technology have enabled the development of asset tokenization, which has been argued by critics as both favorable and problematic.

First place will receive $10,000, second place will receive $7,500 and third place will receive $5,000. To apply for the Gould Scholastic Award, students must be a university junior or senior. Graduate students are not eligible to participate. Group projects are eligible, but if the group wins, the winning dollars are split equally among the members of the group.

In 2025, Truman students earned first, second and third place in the contest, taking home a combined total of $22,500.

Interested students should contact Yung-hwal Park, associate professor of business administration, at yhpark@truman.edu by Sept. 11.

Additional information and organization signups are available here. Questions should be directed to Zac Burden, director of citizenship and conduct, at zburden@truman.edu.

Applications for positions on AFAC are available at senate.truman.edu/application. Questions should be directed to studentgovernment@truman.edu.

Students who may be interested in sharing their Truman experiences should fill out this form.

Cindy Waller, chair and associate professor of nursing, and Brie Cantrell (’01) have been selected by the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing (VUSN) for the 2026 Linda D. Norman Award for Innovation in Health Care. The pair earned the award for their work in revolutionizing rural nursing education by securing diverse clinical placements, resulting in a scalable model for practice-ready professional preparation. Waller and Cantrell will be presented with their award during the VUSN Reunion, Oct. 16.

Applications are available here. Questions should be directed to Brody Douglas, recruitment chair, at jc22571@truman.edu.