Meet three families who have embraced the Barry experience. For one, the connection comes through a mother and son earning the same master’s degree and using their knowledge to support others. For another, that bond was shaped through athletics, with the Buccaneer spirit now passing from one generation to the next. The third family made Barry their second home, and its members have graced the campus and the classrooms for a quarter century.
By Judy Creel All in the Family Alumni are making Barry part of their family legacies.
The Boone Family Some people call Keva Boone ’06, MS ’08 “the person who knows everybody at Barry.” She started visiting the campus for dance recitals at age 8 and never truly left. Keva is an undergraduate and graduate alumna, an employee, an adjunct faculty member, and a proud mother of three Barry alumni and two current Barry students.
When Keva started working at Barry in 2000, her oldest daughter was turning 8. Like their mother, her children spent much of their young lives on the Barry campus, where Keva’s coworkers provided a strong support system, especially when she decided to go back to college in 2006 and show her children that no matter what hardship you go through in life, you can be successful as long as you put your mind to it. “I was juggling five kids, work, and school, and sometimes it was tough,” she says. “My Barry family was there for me. When I had night classes, my coworkers watched my kids and fed them, and when I got out of class at 10, all I had to do was put them in bed.”
Keva began her Barry career as the IT support person for the School of Education and has held various positions across the university in IT, training, and other specialties, as well as teaching as an adjunct. Currently, she is the associate director for Instructional and Media Technology, where she does “a little bit of everything” from project management to system administration to livestreaming for the university.
Their mother’s long tenure and popularity presented a bit of a challenge for Keva’s older daughters, who felt at home at Barry but were determined to have their own college experiences. Alicia, five years older than her next sibling, wanted to figure things out and learn from her own mistakes. “I’m a fly-under-the-radar type of person, but professors saw my name and I was more known than I wanted to be,” she says with a laugh. “It was a great learning experience. I met new people and made friends.”
Likewise, second daughter Jahniece didn’t usually tell people who her mother was. “Everybody speaks so highly of her,” she explains. “I didn’t want to use her name. I wanted to do it on my own.” She also shared a special bond with her mother by becoming a mother herself (missing her undergrad graduation while in the hospital having her daughter) and learning firsthand what it’s like to juggle earning a master’s degree while caring for a baby.
Today, Alicia is an IT systems specialist. Jahniece counsels male inmates with the Miami Dade Correction and Rehabilitation Department and plans to become a registered clinical intern, with hopes of working with youth. Youngest sister Anaya graduated this year with a degree in business; brother John III is studying computer science; and brother Edward is studying business administration.
Indeed, the Boone family is a Barry family through and through.
"My Barry family was there for me. When I had night classes, my coworkers watched my kids and fed them, and when I got out of class at 10, all I had to do was put them in bed."
The Thompson Family The odds of Kari Kupfer ’97 and Karl Thompson ’99 ever crossing paths were pretty slim. After all, she lived in Arizona, while he was in a tiny coal mining town in West Virginia. Fortunately, both were gifted athletes who explored the idea of playing college ball in Florida.
Faced with few choices for softball in Arizona at the time, Kari thought about heading to nice weather and being close to her grandparents. She didn’t know much about Barry, but she liked the coaching staff she met in the recruiting process and grew to admire and respect them even more as a player.
“My time at Barry was very memorable, and several people there made huge impacts on my life,” Kari says. “One special moment came when we made regionals my senior year and were going to be on the road for graduation. At the baccalaureate a week earlier, Sister Jeanne handed the three seniors our diplomas.”
Karl’s grandmother and aunt suggested that he escape the cold and come down to Florida. While playing baseball at Miami Dade North Community College, Barry scouts saw him and invited him and a teammate to check out the campus. Both transferred to Barry, and Karl ended up with a full scholarship.
“Pineville, West Virginia, had about 600 people, so for me it was a whole new world,” says Karl. “Playing baseball, you’d read about big schools like Michigan and Miami. I was the winning pitcher when Barry beat Michigan State in ’97.”
Despite being student-athletes, Kari and Karl never really got to know each other while students. After Kari graduated and started teaching and coaching at Miami’s Palmetto High School, she returned to Barry regularly to watch her sister’s softball games.
During those visits she got to know Karl, who was still playing baseball at the time. From there, the relationship blossomed, and they were married.
While house hunting in Miami, Kari received a call from her hometown: Was she interested in teaching? Coaching? Their bid on a home had just been rejected, so they decided to give it a try. The Thompsons have been teaching and coaching together at Lake Havasu High School in Arizona for the last 24 years.
Karl teaches and is the varsity football coach and junior varsity baseball coach. He has dabbled in coaching just about every sport at the high school as well as club baseball.
Meanwhile, Kari has taught nearly every class the mathematics department has to offer and is currently its chair. Not surprisingly, she is also the varsity softball coach. As of May 2023, she had 381 career wins, and her teams consistently have been in the playoffs. Kari is proud to have added several outstanding Lake Havasu softball players to the Buccaneer roster over the years. “That’s been a highlight for me,” she says. “I had a really good experience at Barry, think highly of the education, and believe the small community feel is good for kids.”
The Thompsons carry the Barry spirit with them, and visit and keep in touch regularly. “I still talk with several of my coaches, professors, and people I went to school with all the time,” says Karl. “It’s a true family feeling.”
Now, Kari and Karl are sending the next generation of Thompson athletes to their alma mater. Their daughter, Taylor, is a captain on the Barry softball team and a senior this fall. Son Tyler, a high school senior, is a centerfielder on his varsity baseball team and quarterback for the football team. Trevor, a sophomore, also plays baseball and football. Barry is on the radar for both—naturally.
I had a really good experience at Barry, think highly of the education, and believe the small community feel is good for kids.
The Lewis Family From the day his mother bought him a football at age 4, Devon Lewis-Buchanan MSW ’19 dreamed of being in the NFL. He felt a connection with that ball. And as he grew older, he wanted to earn enough money to pay for his hardworking mom to retire.
Devon was on his way when an, accident during warmup destroyed his chances to play in his final game at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. It was the school’s historic first championship game, which he had envisioned would lead him to the next level. The team won, but his hopes were dashed. Although the then- Oakland Raiders invited him to try out, he was cut.
Back home in south Florida, Devon began working with youth transitioning out of foster care, mentoring the youth, and becoming interested in mental health. He knew about the field from his mother, and he decided to earn his social work degree. “It was very easy to pick a school,” he says. “I knew Barry had everything I wanted because I watched my mom go there.”
Coming in with a less-than-stellar undergraduate academic record, Devon went on to be named the 2020 National Association of Social Work Student of the Year for the state of Florida. He feels that this award spoke to the Barry faculty and staff and all the support they gave him.
Nova Lewis MSW ’06 was surprised when her oldest son wanted to follow in her footsteps but not entirely. As a child, he had been intrigued by her stories of supporting people in their worst moments. In high school, he had shadowed her for community service while she was a case manager, accompanying her on home visits and, in her eyes, showing great promise. “He said he saw so much in what I’d done, and he wanted to do that, too. He’s very good at what he does—I think he’s better than I am,” Nova says.
When she moved to Florida from New York in 1995, Nova had difficulty finding a job in social work, in part because her degrees were business related. She needed credentials. Friends told her great things about Barry, but she lived in Palm Beach County and, between work and raising children, she could not drive to Miami for classes. Disappointed, she gave up on the idea.
One night a few years later, she woke up at 2 a.m. with a strong feeling, like a voice from God telling her to turn on her computer. Searching for schools, an ad popped up noting that Barry had added classes in her county. Her application was on its way by 5 a.m.
Nova called Barry in the morning and was told that the deadline had passed, but she was granted a short extension. A series of close calls with deadlines, transcripts, emails, and a closed FedEx office followed, and miraculously everything went her way. Nova started at Barry that fall. By then, her family had grown to six children, including 1-1/2-year-old twins.
“At times I felt like giving up,” she says. “I didn’t think I could finish because I had so much going on, including lots of real-life issues with my kids.
But I had excellent teachers who worked with me to find ways to pass my academic probation. Barry was a really good place to be, with good teachers, good students, and good people.”
Nova’s whole family cheered her on at her graduation, including her oldest daughter, Dierdre, who began graduate classes at Barry in occupational therapy this year and became part of the Barry legacy.
Since that joyous day, Nova has worked primarily with children at various organizations, including Families First and the Center for Trauma in Palm Beach County. Nova also helps Devon with the nonprofit he founded during his time at Barry, Inspire Youth Mentoring Services, where they focus on bringing education and advocacy to minority mental health.
Although he still has the nonprofit, Devon’s career shifted back to professional football when the now-Las Vegas Raiders hired him as director of alumni relations in 2020. “This was one of the first roles for a social worker for an NFL team,” he explains. He recently became director of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Devon has come full circle, and his mother couldn’t be prouder. “Devon is using what he loved as a social worker working with football players, which was his dream.”
Here are the number of legacy students admitted to Barry over the last five years.
