- DR. JAMES EDGAR FOY V |
FOY, DR. JAMES EDGAR V Age 93 died Friday, Oct. 8, 2010 in Auburn, AL. The funeral will be 11 a.m. at the Auburn United Methodist Church followed by burial at 3 p.m. at Fairview Cemetery in Eufaula, AL. Visitation is Tues., Oct. 12, from 5-7 p.m. at Jeffcoat-Trant Funeral Home in Opelika, AL., and Wednesday morning from 10-10:40 a.m. at the Auburn United Methodist Church Founder's Chapel. Dr. Foy, a graduate of the University of Alabama, served Auburn University as the school's dean of students for more than a quarter-century. The original James E. Foy Student Union Building -- now Foy Hall -- and the ODK James E. Foy V Sportsmanship Trophy, awarded each year to the victor of the Auburn-Alabama Iron Bowl, are named for him. During his undergraduate presidency of Alabama's Omicron Delta Kappa chapter, he made their number one project the resumption of the Alabama-Auburn football game. The two schools had not played each other since 1907. In 1948, he lead a delegation of Alabama students to Auburn to begin Better Relations Day, an event that still occurs each year. It was on this trip that he "felt the Auburn spirit" and realized he wanted to be a part of it.
Born Nov. 7, 1916 in Lexington, NC to Erle Humphrey Foy and Mary Lou Ware Foy, the family returned shortly thereafter to their home in Eufaula, AL where he spent his boyhood. He learned the Alabama Polytechnic Institute Alma Mater from its author Bill Wood, friend and houseguest of his older brother Simpson Roland Foy who was an Auburn student. Dr. Foy became a Christian at the age of eight during a revival led by evangelist and hymn writer Luther B. Bridgers. In 1932 the family moved to Tuscaloosa where he graduated from Tuscaloosa High School before entering the University of Alabama to earn a double AB degree in sociology and history. On campus, he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Alpha Kappa Delta, Kappa Delta Pi, Phi Eta Sigma, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Jasons. He was initiated into Sigma Nu fraternity during the same ceremony as Paul "Bear" Bryant. At graduation he was awarded the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award. He achieved all this while working five jobs: distributor for The Saturday Evening Post and Beechnut Chewing Gum, grader for a sociology professor, butcher for the A&P grocery store, and silver polisher for a local jewelry store. Upon graduation, he was assistant to the dean of men at the University of Alabama for two and a half years until he enrolled in Naval Aviation Flight training in January 1942.
A fighter pilot in VF27 aboard the carrier USS Suwanee in the Solomon Island campaign, he was awarded the Air Medal for Meritorious Service. Upon return to the states he served 18 months as flight instructor at Lee Field in Green Cove Springs, FL, an adjunct to Naval Air Station Jacksonville. After six months as aviation safety officer there, he reduced the fatality rate of pilots in training by 57 percent and major overhauls to damaged aircraft from 20.5 to three. He was executive officer of fighter squadron VGF75 attached to the Franklin D. Roosevelt super carrier when the war ended, and flew a Corsair F4U in the Victory Fly-Over of the Nation's Capitol.
After WWII, he moved his family to Tuscaloosa and engaged in private business with his brother-in-law. In 1947 he resumed his position as assistant to the dean of men at Alabama, earning his MA degree during that time in sociology and anthropology. In 1950, he came to Auburn as assistant director of student affairs; in 1952 he became head of the department, a position he held until his retirement in 1978. With his encouragement, the 1967 Auburn Student Body achieved the American Red Cross World Record of 4,812 pints donated in a 2-day blood drive and he himself was twice given the Red Cross Award of Honor for donating a total of 72 pints during his lifetime. He also was a member of Alpha Phi Omega, Pershing Rifles and Arnold Air Society. He earned his PhD from Michigan State University in 1969. He served as 1966 president of the American College Honor Societies, and in 1975 the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators awarded him the Outstanding Student Personnel Administrator in the USA. The 1954 and 1978 Glomeratas were dedicated to Dean Foy. After retiring from Auburn, he served as Executive Secretary for Alabama Governor Fob James from 1978 to 1980. Dean Foy was associated with the Phi Eta Sigma academic honor society from 1936 to 1992. As national executive secretary for 39 years, he installed 208 chapters throughout the US. The society awards an annual national scholarship in his honor. Upon his retirement and at the request of the Auburn Student Government Association, the Board of Trustees named the Student Union Building for him, and the Omicron Delta Kappa Circles of Alabama and Auburn renamed the trophy awarded each year to the winner of the Auburn-Alabama football game, the ODK James E. Foy V Sportsmanship Trophy. In October 2002, the Auburn Alumni Association awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award. An ardent admirer of the Dr. George Petrie's Auburn Creed written in 1943, Dr. Foy became a member of the George Petrie Society in 2002. He joined the Auburn Rotary Club in 1950 and served in every leadership capacity, including president. He received three Paul Harris Fellowships and was named Distinguished Citizen by the club in 1993. He served as president of the Auburn High Band Parents, the AHS and Lee County PTAs, and chairman of Auburn Community Chest drive. In 1993, he was Citizen of the Year by the Chattahoochee Council of the Boy Scouts of America. In 2004, he received the City of Auburn's Distinguished Veterans Award. A member of Auburn United Methodist Church since 1950, he served on the Official Board and the1952 building finance committee, was a choir member and Sunday School teacher. He met his wife when he was on the Wesley Foundation Board in Tuscaloosa. He was member of the Richard Henry Lee Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution. Dean Foy participated in athletics his whole life -- as a high school football player and tennis champion, later as a golfer, fisherman and wood chopper. He and his wife owned a home on Lake Martin, where he enjoyed water skiing, boating, sailing and swimming. At 62, he took up snow skiing, joined the Birmingham Ski Club and skiied two to four weeks each year until he was 84. He loved flying so much, his request to fly over Auburn and Lake Martin for his 90th birthday was honored by Auburn graduate and Opelika citizen J. B. Stockley in a vintage T-6 Texan, similar to one he trained in WWII. Auburn football was his great love, and his Warrrrr Eagle cheers often reverberated across the campus and the Loveliest Village on the Plains. Dean Foy was predeceased by his wife of 60 years, Emmalu O'Rear Foy, which whom he shared a lifetime love of music. He is survived by two daughters, Mary Lou Foy and Mrs. Benjamin B. Spratling (Susan Foy); a grandson, Benjamin B. Spratling, IV, son-in-law Ben B. Spratling, III, and his daughter Camille Spratling, a sister-in-law Mrs. Caine O'Rear, Jr. (nee Kathryn Isbell) of Jasper, and numerous nieces, nephews and grand- and great-grand-nieces and -nephews. Of the many cousins he had growing up in Eufaula, only Florence Foy Strang, 102, remains. Flowers are welcome, as are donations to Women's Hope Medical Clinic, 820 Stage Road, Auburn, 36830; the Emmalu Foy Award at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, 415 W. Magnolia, Auburn, 36832; and the James E. and Emmalu Foy Spirit Award at the Auburn University development office. Jeffcoat-Trant Funeral Home & Crematory is directing.
Published in The Birmingham News from October 11 to October 12, 2010 [3]
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The Duttons of New England
1916 - 2010 (93 years)
Has no ancestors and no descendants in this family tree.
[1] 
O'REAR, Emma Lucretia "Emmalu"
