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Wallace, DeCoster and Downs are all recipients of the James R. Briley Health Education Scholarship, which provides health behavior and health education graduate students at the School of Public Health money for tuition, books and living expenses while they pursue their degrees. 

Wallace, who will enter the program in fall 2001, said he feels "overwhelmed with honor and somewhat undeserving of such a distinguished award. 

"Were it not for the scholarship," Wallace said "I'd find myself devoting more time next year to offsetting the cost of my education, most likely through employment that would not be entirely related to my career and life goals."

Wallace said the extra money "has enabled me to spend more time volunteering, and using my gifts to improve the lives of others."

That includes outreach ministry with University Presbyterian Church through Habitat for Humanity, Campus Ministry, planning overseas mission delegations, Venture Scouting (a high school co-ed scouting program), the Durham-San Ramon Nicaragua Sister Community Partnership, Durham Social Justice Committee and Orange County Emergency Medical Services.  "The list goes on," Wallace admitted. 

His post-graduation goals include "service toward those in poor health, whether it be from biological, social, economic or behavioral inequalities. Just as Jim passed the buck on to the scholarship recipients, I'll pass it one step further to the folks I feel really benefit from the scholarship." 

Wallace's first-name relationship with Briley is not unusual. Both Downs and DeCoster are friendly with their benefactor and keep in touch with him at his Utah home via cards, letters and e-mails. 

In a recent letter to Briley, 2000-2001 recipient DeCoster wrote of her grueling spring semester, which included five graduate courses, working 20 hours a week for GlaxoSmithKline, and single-parenting her two children, which she described as "a fairly time-consuming hobby." 

"I must say," her letter confided, "I have never had so little sleep for months at a time since I had newborns." Thanks to the Briley Scholarship, she was able to choose a master's project that did not carry a stipend. She will work with Professor Betsy Randall-David on a breastfeeding promotion project for Spanish-speaking women through UNC Hospitals. 

Annie Downs, the first Briley Scholarship recipient, received her master's degree in health behavior and health education in August 2001. She described her master's project, The Heart Chart, with an enthusiasm not always evident in graduate students in the final throes of their degrees. The chart is a patient-held notebook which allows heart patients to keep track of the complex information related to their conditions: cholesterol levels, blood pressure, medications and so on. Written in plain language and from a patient's perspective, the project grew out of Downs' work in a heart failure clinic. 

"When I saw how much information we expected our patients to keep track of, I came up with The Heart Chart," Downs said. She hopes to complete pilot testing in the summer and fall - in the few lulls between working as a physical therapist, raising her children and moving to Indianapolis for the next adventure of her career. 

Downs added that the scholarship also allowed her "the pleasure of being introduced to a delightful human being." She recently received an e-card from Briley announcing his first hole-in-one. 

Briley prefers to keep the attention on scholarship recipients. "I'm a little reticent on the whole prospect of an article about this," he said. "It's the three Briley scholars who are going to be impacting their kids and everybody else's kids for a long, long time. They are the message carriers. 

"The whole idea (of the scholarship)," he said, "is to give them some security and some freedom to attack the academic requirements to do the job. Mary DeCoster is a single mother - that's got to be one hell of a job, just to make a living. If I can pay her tuition and give her a modest stipend, she can have the freedom of discretionary income. (When you have kids), every time you turn around, somebody needs new shoes or a diaper changed. It takes energy reserves and a resiliency that seem impossible to me." 

Briley grew up on a tobacco farm in Bethel and received his undergraduate degree in biology and social sciences from East Carolina in 1949. A paper he wrote on stream pollution so impressed his biology professor that she forwarded it to Lucy Morgan, the first chair of the Department of Health Education at Carolina. Soon after this, Briley received a full state-sponsored scholarship, including a stipend, to pursue a master's degree in health education at Carolina. 

Briley graduated in 1950, but was not able to practice health education for long. Four months after beginning work as a health educator in Vance and Warren counties, Briley's draft notice came up. He enlisted in the Air Force. That stint grew into a long career in the military, including work with the U.S. State Department in India and service in Vietnam. He retired in 1975 as a lieutenant colonel. 

After careful analysis of the market, Briley began a third career in real estate development and construction. His research revealed that Utah had the best potential. "The one part of my analysis that I failed to consider was, how does an immigrant Southern Baptist fit into this Mormon community?" he said. 

But his natural charm and low-key style helped him enjoy a successful career in real estate. Then, 50 years after he first came to Chapel Hill, Briley decided it was time to give back. He called health behavior and health education chair JoAnne Earp and offered the department a fully endowed scholarship. 

William Friday, former UNC system president, was dean of men at Carolina during Briley's student days and the two were acquaintances. "Jim Briley and what he has done for the school of public health represent the finest tradition of a responsible alumnus thanking his alma mater for the grand experience he had as a student and scholar," Friday said.

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