Alumni Awards

Through CCS, Killebrew would bring the first IBM personal computers to Alabama companies, universities and banks. He was instrumental in helping Auburn Football Coach Pat Dye computerize the Auburn Athletics Department. The company continues to thrive today, providing computer hardware and software to businesses and educational institutions.

He is current chairman of the board at SunSouth LLC, president and CEO of CCS Technology Centers, the head of Henry Farm Center, Inc. and holds the top position of the ATTA Library of STEM and History.

In recent years, Killebrew has helped fund some of Auburn’s newest landmarks like Neville Arena, the Gogue Performing Arts Center and the Rane Culinary Arts Center, and contributed to the reconstruction of the College of Agriculture’s home in Comer Hall.

The Abbeville, Ala. native served on the Auburn Law Society, was a member of the Alpha Pi Mu Engineering Honorary Society and started several scholarships in the Killebrew family name.

As a former member of the Auburn Alumni Association Board of Directors, Killebrew helped start the Lifetime Achievement Award Program in 2001. Now in 2024, he has the unique honor of receiving one.

He was recognized as the College of Education’s 1988 Distinguished Alumnus, and in 2000 he received the Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa, his second doctorate degree from Auburn.

Emily taught and held counseling positions at Auburn-area public schools before returning to Auburn University in 1974 as a panhellenic advisor in the Office of the Dean of Women. She later spent 13 years in the office of the president, serving as assistant to the president and board of trustees. In 1988, Auburn named a campus residence hall at the Hill in her honor.

A dedicated servant leader as well, Emily was active in numerous civic and community activities, but none as dear to her as the Lee County Humane Society, where she served on the board of directors for more than a decade.

After they retired, Gerald and Emily vowed to continue their support of higher education. As a memorial to their parents, they established the Leischuck-Reaves Endowment Fund for Scholarships — as well as the Gerald and Emily Leischuck Annual Teaching Awards Program in the College of Education — to bring not only great students to the Plains, but recognize great faculty as well.

Their generosity even extends beyond Auburn, as they have provided scholarship endowments at Birmingham-Southern College, Huntingdon College and the University of Northern Colorado.

While Emily unfortunately passed in 2013, the couple’s legacy lives on in the new students that enroll at Auburn, and other universities, every fall.

When he returned to Dothan, he took a job at mechanical contractor and engineering company, Smith, Inc., and later was able to purchase the company with two other employees.

Possessing a great instinct for new opportunities, his business ventures included Engineered Systems, Inc., which specialized in major design-build projects like Auburn’s indoor football practice facility; Higgins Electric, Inc., an industrial supply business; and Aladan Inc., the largest latex glove producer in the U.S.

Watson was also a founding board member of the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind (AIDB), helping double its financial endowment and contributing to the AIDB Wiregrass Center for disabled infants, children, adults and seniors. For his contributions, Watson was named the President’s Council Volunteer of the Year in 1996.

Throughout his life Watson has made incredible contributions to Auburn, establishing the John H. and Gail P. Watson Endowed Engineering Scholarship awarded to students from Dothan who are accepted into the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. He was also instrumental in creating the John H. Watson Fieldhouse, Auburn’s first indoor practice facility, which now serves as the training center for most of Auburn’s 15 athletics teams.

He is a member of several esteemed Auburn support groups, including the Auburn Athletics Pat Dye Society, the 1856 Society and the Foy Society, and is a life member of the Auburn Alumni Association.

John’s outstanding professional contributions and selfless leadership led to his induction into the Dothan Business Hall of Fame, as well as the State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame and the State of Alabama Business Hall of Fame.