Zack and Beth Ryan

Elizabeth "Beth" (Atkinson) Ryan ('02) is a third-year Associate of the law firm of Hinkle, Hensley, Shanor & Martin, L.L.P. in Roswell, NM. She practices with the firm's natural resources section, primarily in the area of oil and gas title examination, contract preparation, negotiation, division orders, and litigation. Mrs. Ryan graduated summa cum laude from Lubbock Christian University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities, emphasis in pre-law, minor in Biblical studies. She is a 2006 cum laude graduate of Texas Tech University School of Law, where she received her Doctorate of Jurisprudence and served as the Executive Student Writing Editor for the Law Review. She has been published professionally a number of times on issues ranging from appellate review of criminal cases to oil and gas topics.

While her professional credentials, affiliations and honors would certainly provide our readers with an impressive amount of information, it's her ties to Lubbock Christian University that are the most special to Mrs. Ryan. She is active as a member of the Young Alumni Advisory Board for LCU and she has a plethora of family ties to the university, including the fact that her husband, Zack, received his degree in Business Administration, emphasis is CIS in December 2002. Zack returned in 2004 to get his teaching certification and currently serves as a teacher and basketball coach at Roswell Goddard High School. They have numerous family connections to the university and, according to Beth, those connections all help to illustrate the type of atmosphere that can be found on the LCU campus.

"I would recommend LCU to anyone who is looking for several things in a college or post-graduate education," said Ryan of her love for the university. "A Christian atmosphere and education, smaller classes and close relationships with your professors, and a degree that is from a well-respected university in every field (which gives you a great jumping-off point, especially, for post-graduate work)."

And she and Zack both can speak from experience as it relates to both their professional, as well as their personal lives. They are the proud parents of a daughter, Isabelle "Belle," born in February, so their lives definitely have changed over the last several months. That, says Beth, is something she and Zack were prepared for and it has a lot to do with their association through the years with Lubbock Christian University.

"My education at LCU gave me the ability to communicate--to read, research, write, and speak on another level. The ability to communicate is truly going extinct in this country," she surmises. "Finally, and most importantly, LCU gave me a foundation for meeting life's challenges with the perspective of Christ by way of courses, such as Romans and Ethical Christian Living with Dr. Jeff Cary.

"I had a life-changing spiritual experience during those courses by, as his Word says, allowing my spirit to be transformed through the renewing of my mind, which is where the battleground of life happens. No one can prepare you for life's hardships, but LCU helped prepare me to survive them with my Savior, Jesus Christ."

The life that the Ryan family now leads is certainly an enviable one to be sure. They've started a family, become successful in their respective fields of endeavor and they are well on the way to a life that is being guided by God. The influence they both received from their time on the LCU campus is obvious and at least partially responsible for the people they have become.

"I would recommend LCU to anyone who not only wants to be a success in their field, but also a success in life," says Beth of her feelings about LCU.

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