“To me, Sewanee is like a little piece of heaven on Earth. When you’re there, it doesn’t matter what’s going on around you—you’ll find yourself captivated by its beauty.”
Across the Domain, there are plenty of picturesque spots where two dewy-eyed undergraduates might fall in love—while watching a sunset at Morgan’s Steep, for instance, or during a long walk around Lake Cheston. Carla Morehead Nimocks, C’83, recalls the exact place where she first met her husband, Mallory Nimocks, C’81: standing in Trezevant Hall, surrounded by toilet paper.
As Carla tells it, she had ventured to Trezevant with her good friend, Susan Mashour Diehl, C’83, on a mission to meet Mallory’s roommate, Mike Jones, C’81, whom Diehl knew. Unfortunately, Carla says, Mike and Mallory weren’t in their room. “So we decided to have a little fun and decorate the room with toilet paper.” Though the pranksters then moved on to visit other friends, their mischief was quickly discovered. While standing in the Trezevant courtyard, “I saw a light come on in one of the rooms,” Carla says. “I thought, ‘I’ll run back and say hi to Mike.’” Back at the scene of the crime, Carla saw not Mike, but Mallory staring at the TP’ed walls and furniture. “I figured, ‘Well, I can run now, and he’ll never know I did it, or I can say hello.’” Carla introduced herself, and they had a short conversation. About a week later, Mallory asked Carla on a date. They married soon after Mallory graduated, in October 1981.
Between their Sewanee “happily ever after” and the formative academic and co-curricular experiences that the University provided, the Nimockses say it was an easy decision to give back. The couple are longtime Sewanee Fund supporters and have contributed significant funding to Sewanee football and baseball. Recently, they established the Carla and Mallory Nimocks Cornerstone Scholarship, which will help cover critical tuition and housing costs for a student who might not otherwise be able to enroll at Sewanee. Cornerstone scholarships are need-based and available at two levels; $25,000 and $40,000, both payable over four years.
Though their first encounter may have been more comical than romantic, the Nimockses point out that there was plenty of Sewanee magic in their courtship. Carla says she knew she was in love with Mallory when they were walking together in Abbo’s Alley and he began reciting “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. “I’d never had anyone recite a poem by heart to me before,” she says. “That was it. He had my heart.” For her part, Carla, who is from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, charmed her Arkansan beau by preparing fried chicken for him in the kitchen of Johnson Hall. “As a Northern girl, I thought, ‘Well, if I’m going to cook anything to impress a Southern boy, it has to be fried chicken.’”
Love can make it hard to focus, but Carla and Mallory were both dedicated students—and athletes too. Mallory played football and baseball throughout his time on the Mountain. “I’m a small-college athletics enthusiast today because of my experience at Sewanee,” he says. “I’d rather go to a small-college game than a Division I game any day.” Notably, his football coaches included Horace Moore Jr., P’84, as well as Shirley Majors, who had more wins than any other head coach in the history of Sewanee football. Carla enjoyed playing on the University’s soccer team, at one point winning a spring break game against the University of Alabama. She was also a cheerleader, participated in Big People for Little People, pledged Theta Pi, and sang in the University Choir.” These days, she directs the music program at First United Methodist Church in Forrest City, Arkansas, where the couple lives. “I attribute my love of [music], partly, to being involved with it at Sewanee,” she says. “I mean, who wouldn’t love singing in All Saints’?”
On the academic side, Mallory says Professor of English Tam Carlson, C’63, was “very influential.” Not long after the opening of Sewanee’s William Ralston Music Listening Library, which Carlson developed and oversaw, Mallory visited the campus and spent an afternoon spinning classic rock albums with Tam and his wife, Chris Ausley Carlson, C’83. “I remember we listened to some Levon Helm and Led Zeppelin. We were like a bunch of old rockers.” Mallory also credits Professor of English Doug Paschall, C’66, H’94, as a mentor. “Doug was a volunteer football coach, as well as being a professor,” he notes, so the two shared time on the field and in the classroom.
Carla says her Sewanee psychology courses played a large role in steering her toward a 20-year career as a speech pathologist in the Forrest City public school system. She left Sewanee after marrying Mallory but soon enrolled at Arkansas State University (ASU), where she earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in speech pathology. Following his graduation from Sewanee with a B.A. in English, Mallory joined Nimocks Oil, his family’s petroleum wholesale business. While his English degree didn’t necessarily provide finance or administrative skills, Mallory says it facilitated “the ability to express myself and communicate.” His time as a Sewanee Tiger was also beneficial, he says. “I love being part of a team, and I love leading a team—a business team, so to speak. I don’t think I could have done that [at Nimocks Oil] without my experience at Sewanee, having four years of football and baseball.”
In 1997, Carla and Mallory became co-owners of Nimocks Oil, after purchasing the business from Mallory’s parents. Along with petroleum sales, they branched into direct retailing. By the time they sold the company in 2020, they were overseeing 16 convenience store locations across the Arkansas Delta. “Carla and I were equal partners and captains of that business,” Mallory says. Some couples might find it claustrophobic to live and work together, but not so for the Nimockses. “Mallory was the one on the road, and I worked in HR for the company, so I was in the office more,” Carla says. “We weren’t constantly with each other, yet we could come home and say, ‘Hey, what did you do with your day? Here’s what happened with my day.’ It was a good marriage for both of us.”
In addition to their Sewanee scholarship, the Nimockses fund a scholarship at East Arkansas Community College (EACC), where Carla served as development director for three years. Their EACC scholarship enables students in six high schools across six counties in the region to concurrently enroll in EACC courses and receive high school and college credits. Many of the EACC scholarship recipients wind up earning associate degrees by the time they graduate from high school, Mallory says.
Philanthropy is a family value, as Mallory notes. “I think Carla and I were both influenced [to give] by our parents. They were generous people.” With funds from the sale of Nimocks Oil, Carla and Mallory created a charitable endowment through the Arkansas Community Foundation, which they have used to support causes that matter to them. “It’s wonderful to see how Carla and Mallory continue to champion EQB,” says Vice President for University Relations Deborah Vaughn, P’20. “It’s clear they care about their community, and their support has helped our students form relationships and connections that will last a lifetime.”
The Nimockses say they return to the Mountain as often as they can, and their Sewanee friendships remain strong. In 2021, Mallory organized a surprise 60th birthday party for Carla at a state park, and invitees included several Sewanee couples. Carla says when she first visited the campus as a prospective student, she was struck by the Domain’s extraordinary features, and that sense of awe has only increased over the years. “To me, Sewanee is like a little piece of heaven on Earth. When you’re there, it doesn’t matter what’s going on around you—you’ll find yourself captivated by its beauty.”
