ICC Names Alumnus of Year

ITAWAMBA COUNTY, Miss. (Press Release) — Dr. Amanda Pitts Summers of Mantachie will be honored as Itawamba Community College’s 2014 Alumnus of the Year, Oct. 25, during homecoming activities at the Fulton Campus.

Special presentations will be made at 1:15 p.m. in the lobby of the David C. Cole Student Services building and at 3:05 p.m. during a pre-game ceremony at Eaton Field, prior to the football game with the Mississippi Gulf Coast Bulldogs.

She is a former Miss ICC, member of Kaleidoscope and Hall of Fame.

Summers is a clinical pharmacist for North Mississippi Medical Center’s Outpatient Infusion department. She also serves as a clinical assistant professor for the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy where she precepts students in the final year of pharmacy school. Her lengthy involvement with the Mississippi Society of Health-System Pharmacists includes serving as Northern Region vice president. She received the MSHP Service Award in 1998 and has been selected as Pharmacist of the Year by MSHP twice.

She graduated cum laude from the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy and completed graduate work at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences with a 4.0 GPA. At the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy, she served as a research assistant in the UM Pharmacognosy Department on a yellow root (Xanthorhiza simplicissima) antiviral research study, was vice president of the pharmacy class, editor of the Ole Miss Pharmacist, a member of Phi Kappa Phi and recipient of the Pharmacy Administration award as well as the Excellence in Pharmacy award.

As Miss ICC, she won a talent award at the Miss Mississippi Pageant with Reba McIntire’s “Sunday Kind of Love.” Additional activities when she was at ICC include Who’s Who Among American Junior Colleges, Student Court, Student Scientists, Phi Theta Kappa, coeditor of the Mirror for two years and member of the casts of “Dracula” and “Grease.”

Summers has performed on NBC’s Today Show in New York while participating in a talent competition where she won Best Gospel Performance with Manhattan Transfer’s “Operator.” She was cast as Annie Oakley in Tupelo Community Theatre’s “Annie Get Your Gun” and as Darlene Purvis in all three “Honky Tonk Angels” productions as well as Mazeppa in “Gypsy,” a role she also had 20 years previously on the ICC Fine Arts stage.

Summers is a lifetime member of both the ICC Alumni Association, for which her service includes board member, president-elect, president and immediate past president; and the University of Mississippi Alumni Association.

She continues as a volunteer at the Good Samitarian Free Clinic in Tupelo, which began when she was in pharmacy school. She is a charter member of the Tupelo Symphony Chorus and is past president of the Pilot Club of Mantachie.

Summers sang solos in her home church, Fawn Grove Free Will Baptist, at age 2 and first sang on the radio at age 6 with her father’s band. She was valedictorian of her class at Mantachie High School where she participated in the band, was co-editor of the yearbook and pianist for the choir.

She and her husband, Mark, have two sons, Lincoln, 8; and Evan, 6. They own and operate Lakefront Gardens, LLC, a landscape design/build firm and retail garden nursery in Tupelo. Her family also includes her parents, Doris and Jerry Pitts of Mantachie; and her in-laws, Janice and David Summers of Tupelo.