Speakers Circuit
Susan Turbeville, executive director of the Haiti Education Fund, will be the guest speaker when the Kiwanis Club meets at noon on Wednesday at First Presbyterian Church.
The Haiti Education Foundation, founded by the late Frances Landers, has provided education for children living in the remote mountains of southern Haiti for over 30 years.
Turbeville has worked with the foundation for about 14 years and has traveled to Haiti on numerous trips. She is an active member of College Avenue Church of Christ and has served on the El Dorado School Board for a number of years.
She and her husband, Joey, have two grown children, Emile and Trey. Pete Parks, a certified public accountant and president of Southern Golf Management Group, Inc., which is the general partner in Mystic Creek Golf and residential community near El Dorado, will be the guest speaker when the Civitan Club meets at noon on Thursday at Immanuel Baptist Church Family Life Center.
Parks was born in El Dorado and graduated from El Dorado High School. He attended the University of Central Arkansas in Conway and South Arkansas Community College, where he received his associate’s degree. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of New Mexico, where he was a member of the football team and received various All Western Athletic Conference honors and was named as the recipient of the Stromberg Award. After completing his senior year, he signed a free agent contract with the Houston Oilers of the National Football League.
Upon completion of his master of business administration degree at the University of New Mexico, he worked for Arthur Andersen and Co., an international accounting and consulting firm, for four and one-half years before returning to El Dorado. During his employment with Arthur Andersen, he became a certified public accountant and served on the board of the Albuquerque chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
He is managing member of Parks and Co., PLC, a certified public accounting firm and has served as president of the Arkansas Society of CPAs. He has served as a member of the board of directors of South Arkansas Community College Foundation, a water commissioner for the El Dorado Water Utilities and secretary/treasurer of the Union County Water Conservation Board.
(Organizations interested in listing a speaker in Speakers Circuit should send information about the speaker to editorial@ eldoradonews.com. A club member should provide background information on their speakers in writing or by e-mail to the NewsTimes. The deadline for submitting background information is 5 p.m. on Thursday for the following Sunday’s newspaper).