Former MC Board of Directors Chair Mike Davis to be presented with Maryville College Medallion
Sept. 23, 2025
After four years of service as chair of the Maryville College Board of Directors, C. Michael “Mike” Davis Jr. will be presented the Maryville College Medallion during the College’s annual Founder’s Day celebration on Oct. 10.
The most distinguished award presented by MC, the Maryville College Medallion has been awarded since 1990 to individuals who have helped immeasurably toward perpetuating the College as a distinctive educational and cultural institution, and who have had a profound influence on the future course of the institution.
“Mike’s tenure as board chair will be remembered as a notable one in the College’s history — from managing the COVID-19 pandemic to opening the Downtown Center to joining the Southern Athletic Association (SAA) — we were doing anything but sitting still,” said Maryville College President Dr. Bryan Coker, who selected Davis to receive the Medallion after Davis announced his retirement as board chair earlier this year.
At the same July meeting during which members voted to give Davis the Medallion, the board unanimously elected Marcia Kilby ’89 as Davis’ successor, and she began her three-year term this month. Davis became chair in 2021 after the sudden death of Austin Coleman ‘Cole’ Piper ’68. At that time, he had already served nine years on the board, and over the next four years he provided steady leadership grounded in his long ties to the College.
Davis’s wife, Ibby Shelley Davis ’68 attended Maryville College and served on the board of the Maryville College Alumni Association. Their son, Todd Davis ’00, is also a Maryville College graduate (the couple has one other son, Chris). Ibby Davis’s parents, the late Ed Shelley ’31 and Elizabeth Cannon Shelley ’31, both graduated from the College, and Ed Shelley served on the Maryville College Board of Directors as well.
Mike Davis’s brother, Lee Davis, taught in the College’s English Department for six years. Their late mother, Connie Davis, taught physical education at the MC from 1963 until 1972, and their late father, Carle Davis, also served as chairman of the College’s Board of Directors.
“Mike stepped up for the chair of the board role when we needed strong and experienced leadership the most,” Coker said. “He then led the board with a steady hand, always focused on the College’s future in a disruptive period for higher education. No board meeting ever started late during Mike’s time as chair: Even if no one else was in the room yet, the meeting was going to start on time.”
Davis earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee and spent most of his career working for Harrison Construction, serving as president from 2005 until 2009. He served as vice president of the Blount Memorial Hospital Board of Directors from 1991 to 2006, as regional director of First Horizon Bank, and as a member of the North Carolina Asphalt Paving Association from 1985 to 1998.
His community involvement has long been prolific, and over the years, he’s served as campaign chair for United Way of Blount County; president of Mountain Homes, Inc.; and chair of the Blount County Chamber of Commerce. During his tenure as a member of the MC Board of Directors, which he joined in 2012, he served on the Building, Grounds and Technologies Committee, the Audit and Risk Management Committee, and as chair of the Finance and Investment Committee.
A resident of Maryville, Davis was the 21st person to serve as chair of the College’s Board of Directors in the institution’s 206-year-old history.
The presentation of the Maryville College Medallion will take place at the Founder’s Day Showcase, which will take place at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 10, in the Ronald and Lynda Nutt Theatre of the Clayton Center for the Arts on the MC campus as part of Homecoming 2025. The event is free to attend and will be preceded by the President’s Welcome Reception in the William Baxter Lee III Grand Foyer of the CCA. Tickets to the reception are $20 and can be purchased on the Homecoming website at maryvillecollege.edu/homecoming/.
