In his spare time, Lewis Shepherd used to hang out at funeral homes. He received his funeral director’s license during college and renews it every year. But Lewis Shepherd does not run a funeral home.
“[My father said] if you want to go to the mortuary science institute one day that’s fine, but get an undergrad first,” Shepherd said. “Then he made this prophecy … the day will come when you’re going to have to have a bachelor’s degree just to be a mortician. If you need a bachelor’s degree to work with the dead, what do you think you’re going to need to work with the living?”
Shepherd took his father’s words to heart. He attended Ouachita until 1982 where he earned a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree, then went on to receive a doctorate elsewhere.
Now Shepherd helps other students in Southern Arkansas receive the same education he did.
“[Education] is a passion because I am a product of Southern Arkansas and I’ve never lived outside of Southern Arkansas nor worked outside of Southern Arkansas,” Shepherd said. “I consider myself extremely blessed to have left the area that I grew up in to attend college. I’m a first generation college student … [and] I am the first male Shepherd to receive a college degree.”
Currently Shepherd serves as assistant to the president for special programs. He supervises the Academic Enrichment Center, Talent Search and Upward Bound programs, which all help students get into and stay in college.
“The key to Arkansas moving forward is education,” Shepherd said. “One of the counties right now with the highest poverty rate is Lee County in Eastern Arkansas. It has a 30 percent poverty rate and if you check there you would find the education level would be right on target with the poverty level.”
Senior Kolby Harper will also be a first generation college graduate this May and credits Upward Bound with getting her there.
“I believe that along with my mother, Upward Bound was a primary motivator for attending college,” Harper said. “Upward Bound opened many doors for me and I am truly aware of the blessing the program has been for me. If not for Upward Bound, I’m almost positively sure I would not have attended college.”
Upward Bound follows students through high school until they graduate from college. Harper joined the program her sophomore year of high school.
“Upward Bound brings students to campus once a month, on Saturdays,” Shepherd said, “and in the summer brings them to campus for six weeks to take college-level classes. I’ve always called it a simulation of college life.”
Harper, like Shepherd, has chosen to give back to the college and programs that have helped her, and she has worked with Upward Bound as a program assistant since her freshman year of college.
Shepherd has worked at Ouachita for 28 years under four university presidents.
“My ties to this community are just so interesting and so emotional and so deep,” Shepherd said. “I work at the institution I attended as an undergrad, pastor the church I attended as a student, work in the building next to where I got married and from my office I can see the first spot I parked in on campus.”
Shepherd’s father lived long enough to see his son surpass expectations in education and passed away in April 2001. But Shepherd will never forget the motivation behind his education or the prophecy his father made about funeral homes.
“Little did he know that most states now require at least an associate’s in science or applied science to hold an embalming license,” Shepherd said. “And now you can even get a master’s in mortuary science.”
