Born and raised in Kalalmazoo, Michigan, Beverly graduated cum laude in 1952 from Western Michigan College of Education (now Western Michigan University) with majors in Spanish and English. She received her master’s degree from the University of Iowa and her doctorate from Case Western Reserve University—both in Spanish—in 1954 and 1973.

After teaching in high schools in Michigan and Iowa, Beverly taught at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, until marrying George L. McCormick in 1961. She then taught at Hathaway Brown School for girls in Shaker Heights. Moving to Ashland in 1965, she taught Spanish at Ashland College, retiring in 1983. She was chairman of the department of Foreign Languages and was later granted status of associate professor emerita.

George McCormick died in 1974 and in 1979 Beverly married Dr. Raymond W. Bixler who had taught at the college for forty-three years and whose first wife also died in 1974. He died in 1990.

Dr. Bixler enjoys traveling, church work, and writing. For years she has written book reviews for the church newsletter and also does reviewing for “Church & Synagogue Libraries.”

A member of the Stephen Ministry at the First Presbyterian Church since 1990, she is currently its coordinator. Dr. Bixler serves on the executive committee of the Friends of the Ashland University Library. She was a member of Altrusa International for 21 years, serving as president of this former club from 1980 to 1981. Beverly’s home is never without a cat and she enjoys collecting anything with a feline motif.

“I have received so much from Ashland, my home for more than half my life,” says Dr. Bixler, “that I feel it most fitting to establish a fund at ACCF to benefit areas of the community that have meant so much to me.”

Prepared 2006