Two uniquely accomplished individuals have been selected to receive 2024 Distinguished Alumni Awards from Amarillo College.
Mary Bralley, executive director for Window on a Wider World (WOWW), and award-winning music video director/producer and documentarian Michael Merriman will be the guests of honor at AC’s Distinguished Alumni Luncheon at noon on Wednesday, Oct. 16 at the Amarillo Area Foundation, 919 S. Polk St.
“Amarillo College’s roll call of Distinguished Alumni is all the more illustrious now that these two highly accomplished individuals have taken their rightful places alongside our honorees of the past,” said Joe Bill Sherrod, AC’s vice president of institutional advancement.
“Mary Bralley and Michael Merriman are distinguished indeed,” he said. “Their stories are an inspiration to us all, and we are honored that AC played an important role in helping shape their incredible journeys.”
Bralley, a 2006 AC graduate, was a single and impoverished mom fresh out of Muleshoe High School when she moved to Amarillo in search of employment in the 1980s. Her College journey began years later and spanned nearly a decade before she graduated from AC at age 40; however, she ultimately ascended not only to serve on the Amarillo ISD school board and preside over Los Barrios de Amarillo, but in 2023 she was named Woman of the Year during the Hispanic Heritage Luncheon.