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Columbia, Missouri
Northwest Foundation Board Member
Board member since 2019
Dell Epperson retired in 2012 as a U.S. Navy captain in the Surface Warfare Office after a 30-year career that included assignments in San Francisco; San Diego; Washington, D.C.; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; and London. He served as commanding officer of the USS Fletcher (DD-992), the Afloat Training Group Middle Pacific and the Auburn University-Tuskegee University Consortium, for which he also was a professor of naval science. He began his professional career in radio, working as an announcer at KWIX-KRES in Moberly, Missouri, and then as a program director and morning announcer at KMA in Shenandoah, Iowa. He graduated from Northwest in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree in speech with a broadcasting emphasis. He also has master’s degrees in strategic intelligence from National Intelligence University in Washington, D.C., and in diplomacy and military studies from Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu, Hawaii. He resides in Columbia, Missouri, with his wife Janet Kelley Epperson, a 1975 Northwest graduate.
"From the moment I walked on campus, I felt at home. From the staff at KXCV, to the professors in the classroom, to the RAs in the dorm, they immediately made me feel like family. Friendships made on campus have lasted a lifetime, and I met my wife there as well! We still enjoy wearing a Northwest shirt or ball cap wherever we go and having people stop us and say "You're a Bearcat!" The bumper sticker is true: Once a Bearcat, always a Bearcat."
