Dr. Dan Denny, a recently retired associate professor of human resources at East Central University and coordinator of ECU’s Criminal Justice Program, has been named the Human Resources Department’s Distinguished Alumnus in Criminal Justice for 2011.
Dr. Dan Denny (left), the director of East Central University’s Criminal Justice Program before his recent retirement, accepts the ECU Department of Human Resources’ Distinguished Alumnus Award in Criminal Justice. Dr. Jaime Burns, ECU assistant professor of human resources, made the presentation during the department’s awards and recognitions program this spring.
Denny, a native of Stigler, worked at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester for 15 years and was a unit manager supervising 55 staff members when he left to join the ECU faculty in 1999.
He also is a CLEET-certified reserve law enforcement officer.
Denny was president of the Oklahoma Criminal Justice Association in 2009-10 and planned and conducted the annual conference on the ECU campus in April 2010.
He received one of the first annual Distinguished Alumnus Awards in March 2010 from Eastern Oklahoma State College in Wilburton. He received an associate’s degree from EOSC in 1988. He earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice in 1994 and a master’s degree in human resources administration in 1996, both from ECU, and a doctor of education degree from Oklahoma State University in 2006.
Denny also had a distinguished military career. He commanded three military police commands in the U.S. Army Reserve and Oklahoma National Guard and retired as a major in the Army Reserve.
He deployed one of his units to support Operation Joint Endeavor units in Bosnia. As commander of another unit, he was a platoon leader during Operation Desert Storm and received the Meritorious Service Medal. He also provided security by 5 p.m. the day of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 and commanded a special deployment to Panama, Central America.
He was activated in 2003 to train security troops for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom following the terrorist attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
Denny is a licensed minister and will work with United Methodist Churches in Kiowa and Pittsburg.
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