Cadis Ammons, center, a member of the Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) fraternity’s Theta Pi chapter at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), holds the 2025 Thomas Arkle Clark (TAC) Award. Surrounding him at the award ceremony on Aug. 2, 2025, are family members and friends who have become like family to him: from left to right, Rick Ammons, paternal grandfather; Matthew Ammons, father; Nash Ammons, brother; Brenda Ammons, paternal grandmother; Cadis Ammons; Season Ammons, mother; Jackie Head, maternal grandmother; Jill March and Andy March, church family, and Caleb March and Avery March, ATO brothers and church family. The TAC Award was presented at the annual ATO National Award Celebration (NAC 2025) in Miami.
Courtesy ATO
Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) fraternity’s national spotlight keeps shining on the Theta Pi chapter at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). On Aug. 2, brother Cadis Ammons received the 2025 Thomas Arkle Clark (TAC) Award as the fraternity’s most outstanding senior candidate for an undergraduate degree. UAH is a part of The University of Alabama System.
“It was quite the insane news for all of us,” Ammons said about being chosen as the one man out of 125-plus chapters across the U.S.
Fueling the chapter’s excitement, another brother, Mark Porter, was named one of six 2025 TAC Fellows, runners-up for the award.
“Insane” but not totally shocking: Last year the chapter received the same notification for Grant Hershbine as the 2024 TAC winner and Garrett Willingham as a fellow.
“This is a big deal,” said UAH Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Dr. Ronnie Hebert. “This is our second consecutive year having UAH represented as both the honoree and a runner-up for one of ATO’s most prestigious awards. I can’t think of another university that could say the same. It’s another testament to what a great group of ATOs we have on our campus.”
Thomas Arkle Clark (1862-1932) was a University of Illinois professor and the first dean of men at an American university. He helped organize the ATO chapter at Illinois and was its first initiate. He was known nationally for his efforts to develop the modern Greek system.
The TAC Award, notes the ATO website, is “an incentive for young brothers to seek excellence in scholarship, leadership, service, and the personal qualities of character, integrity, and responsibility.”
In any scholarship crowd, Ammons stands out. He was the top scholar of the College of Engineering when he graduated summa cum laude with a 4.0 grade point average in December 2024. Before receiving his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, he’d already started his master’s through the UAH Joint Undergraduate Master’s Program (JUMP).
His last full year as an undergraduate, fall 2023 through fall 2024, he worked with Dr. Judith Schneider, professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; adjunct, Department of Chemical and Material Science Engineering, and director, UAH Materials Science Program, on phase one of a Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) program with NASA.
Ammons admits he was juggling a lot, but “it was awesome!”
“We got to work on lunar landing pads. Now, because of that research as an undergrad, our team secured a phase two of that contract for two years, which is funding my master’s.”
Working with NASA was Ammons’ goal when he chose UAH. Joining a fraternity was not. Friendship changed his mind.
“At orientation, I met Noah Gray, one of the OLs (orientation leaders). We bonded over ‘Star Wars,’ something I never thought a guy in a fraternity would want to talk about. That was the start of me realizing that there was more to ATO than the stereotypical fraternity.”
Ammons made more friends in the chapter, and when he was offered a bid, he accepted immediately.
Opportunities for leadership and service came quickly:
- Fundraising chair for his pledge class.
- Fundraising chair for the chapter.
- Volunteer with Manna House, a local nonprofit providing food and necessities to anyone in need.
- Volunteer with Sleep in Heavenly Peace, which builds beds for children who don’t have one of their own.
- Communications committee head for Round 15 of the annual fundraiser Battle of the Buffalo. (Theta Pi founded the Southeast’s largest chicken wing festival in 2008 in honor of Paul “Fish” Salmon, a brother who died of leukemia. Ammons’ publicity push on all local news stations helped them break the $100,000 mark for the first time with $112,000 donated to cancer research.)
- Recruitment chair for two years, during which time 78 men joined Theta Pi.
Along the way, Ammons faced personal challenges with help from his brothers and found a faith that enriched his life.
After surviving a stressful semester – taking harder engineering classes while organizing a Viking Week fundraiser that morphed into a meaningful memorial to a deceased brother – Ammons realized that his ATO brothers were really his brothers. He began attending Bible studies, which led to an ATO Encounter religious retreat.
“I learned there that Jesus loves me most, and that my brothers are there for me, and that I have been and always will be loved. That was a pretty pivotal spot, and it was ATO that got me to that. On April 23, 2023, I was baptized in a church in Huntsville with my fraternity brothers and my family sitting together on the front row. That was a moment when my family really got to see who my chapter was and what they had done for me.”