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Michael Davis
Pampa High School Class of 1983
Dr. Michael “Mike” Davis was born to Everett and Joanne Clark Davis in 1965 at Mesa Memorial Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado. The second of two sons, he was raised in Pampa along with his brother, Mark (PHS Class of 1980). He attended Baker Elementary, Wilson Elementary, Houston Middle School, Pampa Middle School, and Pampa Senior High School, graduating in 1983. During these formative years, he was active in band, in the gifted and talented program, in a Fellowship of Christian Musicians group, and in church activities.
Davis matriculated at Wayland Baptist University in August 1983. While there, he completed the Honors Program curriculum, was active in the Webb Society for students of Texas history, was chosen to serve as an auction page for the Texas State Historical Association annual meeting each year, was active in the Iota Chi Epsilon Christian men’s service fraternity, was President of Alpha Mu Gamma Foreign Language Society, and participated in the work-study program as a clerk for the automotive vocational technical program.
He was awarded numerous scholarships at Wayland. He was the first recipient of Wayland’s Outstanding Philosophy Student Award, and he was selected for the 1987 edition of Who's Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges. In April of 1987, Davis received a B.A. with special honors with a philosophy major and with history and German minors.
Scholarships and fellowships also paid for Davis’s graduate studies. His accomplishments include two M.A. degrees (philosophy and history) from the Graduate School at Baylor University, as well as a Ph.D. in Education and Human Development (with a focus in higher education administration) from the Vanderbilt University Graduate School. His dissertation, Faustian Images of the American Research Professoriate: Three Critics and Visionary Ideal, was “passed with distinction,” quite an honor for doctoral dissertations at Vanderbilt.
He worked at the Pantex Plant from July 1993 through July 2005, completing his Pantex career as the manager for nuclear training policy, compliance, and assessments. In August 2005, Davis assumed a similar position at the Nevada Test Site, where he currently works for National Security Technologies, LLC, (NSTec) and manages nuclear training policy and compliance in the Nuclear Operations Directorate.
Davis, a recognized leader in training policy for NSTec, received numerous Defense Program awards and other performance awards. He also received the first NSTec Contractor Assurance System Kudos Award for meticulous work in training policy and compliance. Since graduating in 1987, Davis has been an ardent supporter of Wayland Baptist University, primarily through gifts to the School of Behavioral and Social Sciences. Working with his parents and other supporters, he has led endowment efforts for four scholarships (the Dr. Estelle Owens Scholarship, the Davis Memorial Scholarship, the Dr. David L. and Marie Hans Jester Social Work Scholarship, and the Zaphryn Memorial Scholarship). To date, Davis’s fund raising has garnered roughly $175,000 for Wayland, mainly for scholarship and tuition aid.
Wayland honored Davis with the Distinguished Young Alumni Award in 1997 and the Distinguished Benefactor Alumni Award in 2011. He was also the youngest recipient of the University’s most significant benefactor honor, the Keeper of the Flame Award (2012). Wayland stated that it wished it could clone him, but Davis, ever the pragmatist, resisted, claiming that “no two of me will agree with each other, so cloning would be self-defeating.”