Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

J.C. Penney Honors Henderson State

Greg Fisher, district personnel director of the J.C. Penney Company, recently notified Henderson State University (HSU) that it had been named a priority university by his company.

HSU was named among the J.C. Penney Company's top 20 universities for the southern region. Penney's southern region encompasses Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina.

This rating is based on the quality of graduates universities provide J.C. Penney. Fisher stated that HSU is one of the only two "small" universities ranked in J.C. Penney's top 20 southern universities. HSU provides, on the average, three new management trainees per year to the J.C. Penney Company as compared to the University of Arkansas which only provides one per year.

Fisher stated that of the 12 trainees HSU has placed with J.C. Penney in the last four years, only one has left the company. "The other 11 are all high performers, known for the excellent quality of their work," he said.

As a result of Henderson's outstanding record in supplying the J.C. Penney Company with management-trainees, the HSU Career Center has been awarded an $8,000 grant and a $1,000 scholarship to be awarded annually to a business student.

"The grant awarded to Henderson is one-third of the contribution grant money available from the entire J.C. Penney Corporation," Fisher said. "The size of HSU's grant award was the talk of the recent Southern Region personnel director's meeting in Atlanta. Many ask `Who is Henderson State University?' Now they know," he said.

"Because Henderson State University has been named a J.C. Penney priority university," Fisher continued, "the door is now open for future grant moneys and the $1,000 business scholarship will be awarded annually into perpetuity as long as HSU continues to remain as productive as it has been for the J.C. Penney Company."

According to Jim Cook, director of Career Services, J.C. Penney is the lastest in a growing list of employers which have cited the excellent quality of graduates Henderson State University produces. This list includes employers as diverse as the FBI, Tyson foods, Crew and Company Investment Bankers, San Antonio Independent School Distric, North Texas/Dallas Area Education Co-op, Weyerhaueser, and Dillard's Technical Support Division.