AC Foundation honors Sims Architects with bestowal of Chairman’s Award

For unwavering support of Amarillo College that includes a generous leadership gift to AC’s comprehensive campaign and an insightful makeover of the Washington Street Campus fitness center, Sims + Architects has been named recipient of the AC Foundation’s annual Chairman’s Award.

Majority owner Sheila Sims, who is a second-term member of the AC Foundation Board of Directors, accepted the illustrious accolade during the Foundation’s 60th Annual Meeting on Sept. 10 at the Amarillo Club.

Sheila Sims

“We are so honored and humbled to be selected for the Chairman’s Award,” Sims said. “We are blessed by our partnership with Amarillo College and the positive impact we are striving to make in our community together. As a local business, we have a strong commitment to our city and community, and this is only the beginning as we look for new ways to help improve the landscape around us.”

Each year the Foundation bestows its Chairman’s Award on an individual, family, or organization in the community that has exemplified the AC mission through giving and service.

Joe Bill Sherrod, AC’s vice president of institutional advancement, says the Sims family’s steadfast support was never more evident than when they based the redesign of what is now called FirstBank Southwest Center on recollections of family time spent in the former Carter Fitness Center.

“Their vision for the fitness center was informed and inspired by the many years Shelia and her husband, Richard, sat in the unairconditioned facility watching their girls play volleyball,” Sherrod said. “Due to the poor state of the restrooms there, they would sometimes go to their nearby home to use the facilities. That the re-design included 10 stalls in the women’s restroom would be sufficient cause to award Sims + Architects the Chairman’s Award, but, there is more.

“Shelia is serving her second term as an Amarillo College Foundation Board member and the firm named the Sims + Architects Conference Room in the First Bank Southwest Center with a very generous leadership gift to the Badger Bold Campaign,” Sherrod said. “Amarillo College is better today because of Shelia and Sims + Architects.”

Sheila Sims, who acquired Lavin Associates from her longtime employer Tom Lavin in 2020, changed the name to Sims + Architects and simultaneously established a new philosophy through which partnerships with clients would go beyond building projects. For Sims, a native of Amarillo, investing back in the community through both service and resources became a highly visible priority that her firm continues to practice diligently.

Sims + Architects not only led the FirstBank Southwest Center project at AC, but helped coordinate the College’s new chiller plant. And currently the firm is overseeing major renovations to both the Student Service Center, which will become the new headquarters for Student Life, and the Ware Student Commons.

In addition to serving on the AC Foundation Board, Sheila Sims is on the board of Another Chance House, where she will serve as president in the year ahead. In 2019, upon the death of her father, who also was her drafting teacher at Caprock High School, Sheila started the Jess Roan Foundation in his honor. The foundation offers scholarships to students at her former high school who are pursuing degrees in architecture, engineering or education, and members of the board are all former students of Mr. Roan. Over the last five years, they have awarded more than $20,000 in scholarships.

The Sims’s also are founding members of The Loft Church, where Richard is a head elder and business administrator, and he and Sheila are involved in various ministries. The couple has three daughters who have kept them busy over the past 23 years traveling throughout the country watching them play volleyball. They continue to dwell in a 100-year-old house just down the street from AC.