Troy University will honor four Alumni of the Year during its Homecoming celebration on Nov. 1.

TROY will play host to Arkansas State for Homecoming with kickoff set for 7 p.m. in Veterans Memorial Stadium. The honorees will be recognized during an on-the-field presentation at halftime of the game.

This year’s Alumni of the Year honorees are Boyd Busby (’99), Forrest Latta (’80), Steve Timberlake (’81) and Randal Ward (’77).

“It is truly an honor to recognize these members of the TROY family as a part of our Homecoming celebration,” said Faith Byrd, Director of Alumni Affairs. “These four TROY alumni, in true Trojan spirit, are making a difference through service to their communities, their careers and Troy University. They continue to represent TROY well, and we are proud to recognize them as Alumni of the Year.”

Boyd Busby (’99)

Busby, a 1999 TROY accounting graduate and a 2017 inductee into the William H. Carr School of Accountancy Hall of Honor, has served as Executive Director of the Alabama State Board of Public Accountancy since May 2015. He is a licensed CPA and holds the Charted Global Management Accountant credential. Busby began his public accounting career with the firm, Wilson, Price, Barranco, Blankenship & Billingsley, PC, now Warren Averett, in Montgomery. He served as Chief Financial Officer of Hodges Warehouse & Logistics for 14 years and was the Managing Member of Hodges Business Services, LLC for two years. Busby is active with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy and has held many committee and task force roles over the past 10 years. Busby serves on the Board of Directors for the Higher Education Partnership, the Better Business Bureau Serving Central and South Alabama, and TROY’s Accountancy’s Advisory Council. He and his wife Tami have three children — Kalen (2017 TROY graduate), Kaleb (SSgt, USMC), and Karis, who is married to Eli Lowman (Spec. US Army) – and three grandchildren, Olivia Grace, Luca James and Rosemary Cecilia. 

Forrest Latta (’80)

Forrest Latta is an attorney in the law firm Burr & Forman in Mobile, Alabama, where he has practiced law for 43 years. Latta is a native of Dothan, who attended Troy University on a full scholarship, which he received as Governor of Alabama Boys State. While a student at TROY he participated in SGA and was involved in Delta Chi Fraternity and many other activities. In his junior year, he was one of only two students selected as an “Oxford Scholar” to spend a summer at Oxford University in England.

He graduated with honors from TROY in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science degree in English. His time at TROY enabled him to earn a full scholarship to Cumberland School of Law (Samford University) where he graduated in the top ten of his class. Throughout his college and law school years, Latta worked as a radio news announcer and deejay in several cities, winning two Associated Press news awards.

Latta sits on the Alabama Board of Bar Examiners and the Alabama Rules of Evidence committee and is Past-President of the Mobile Bar Association. He recently was named by the Alabama State Bar as its 2025 recipient of the President’s Award, an annual award that honors an Alabama lawyer who has demonstrated exceptional service, dedication, and contributions to the legal profession and public. The Alabama Defense Lawyers Association honored him in 2024 with the Livingston Award for outstanding service to the defense bar.

In the community, Latta serves on the Board of Trustees of Troy University. He serves on the Board of Advisors of Cumberland School of Law (Samford University) and is active in the American Camellia Society (a national plant society) and several other non-profits.

Latta is one of three members of his immediate family who hold degrees from Troy University (including his mother and brother). He and his wife Kathy are longtime supporters of the TROY Annual Fund and are proud season ticketholders in football. Latta was a co-founder of Troy’s first chartered alumni chapter in 1985 (the Southwest Alabama Chapter) for which he drafted the first alumni charter that is still being used for every chartered alumni chapter.

Latta and his wife Kathy have two grown sons and three grandchildren. Besides his law practice, he is an avid gardener whose specialty is camellias, Alabama’s State Flower, and serves in leading roles in the American and International Camellia Societies. He is especially proud of planting the camellia arboretum (over 60 plants) on the Alabama State Capitol grounds in 2005.

Steve Timberlake (’81)

Timberlake is a Family Wealth Advisor, Financial Planning Specialist, and Certified Financial Planner professional with The Sigma Wealth Management Group at Morgan Stanley. He joined the firm in 2012 following 30 years of trust, investment management and estate settlement experience in the state of Florida. He served on the Executive Committee of the FBA Trust, Asset Management and Private Banking committee, and is a graduate of Florida Trust School, at the University of Florida, and the ABA National Graduate Trust School, at Northwestern University. He earned his bachelor’s in business administration with an emphasis in Finance from TROY. He is past president of the Gainesville Estate Planning Council and the Northwest Florida Estate Planning Council in Pensacola. A 1999 graduate of Leadership Pensacola, Timberlake has served as a Loaned Executive for the United Way, a member of the United Way Foundation Board in Pensacola, and a member of the boards of Pensacola State College Foundation and the Escambia County 4-H Foundation. He currently serves as president of the Pensacola Bay Area Chapter of TROY Alumni Association. He and his wife Candy have two married daughters and five grandchildren.

Randal Ward (’77) Ward, a Dothan, AL native, earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from then-Troy State University in 1977, where he lettered in football and was a member of Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity. Ward worked for the J.P. Stevens Company and the Boy Scouts of America after graduating from college before being hired as Executive Vice President of the Automotive Wholesalers’ Association of Alabama (AWAE) on January 1, 1981. When he was hired, the association was a single-state association in Alabama. By 2003, the association had gained 3 new states and changed its name to Automotive Aftermarket Association Southeast, Inc. In 2022, AAAS grew again, adding five more states through a merger with the Automotive Aftermarket Association Mid-South and becoming the largest regional aftermarket association in the country. Ward graduated from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Organizational Management in 1988. He is Past President of the Automotive Wholesaler Association Executives, the Alabama Council of Association Executives, the Troy University Alumni Association Board of Directors, and the Alliance State Automotive Aftermarket Associations and is Past Chairman of the Alabama Highway Users Federation. Ward has a son, Matthew, who is married to Lauren and has a daughter Maevyn, and a daughter Rachel, who is married to Michael and has a son and daughter, Britton and Barrett.