Jacob Dering honored as pharmacy’s distinguished alumnus

Jolyn Merry, PharmD, UNMC College of Pharmacy class of 2012, held hands with her grandfather, Jacob Dering, on the way to presenting him with the college’s 2024 Distinguished Alumnus Award at pharmacy’s annual awards convocation and hooding ceremony last week.

When was the last time Dering, UNMC College of Pharmacy class of 1960, held hands with his granddaughter?

“Every time I get a chance,” he said after the ceremony, still basking in the moment.

“Often,” confirmed Dr. Merry, who said she grew up visiting her grandparents in Crete, Nebraska. There, she got a firsthand look at Dering’s love for his profession and his impact on the patients he served.

She hung out in the pharmacy and tagged along on visits to elder care centers.

Dering worked for decades as an independent pharmacist in Crete, serving his community, and as a trusted preceptor to generations of UNMC College of Pharmacy students. He is a former winner of the prestigious American Pharmacists Association Bowl of Hygeia Award.

Dr. Merry, the incoming president of the UNMC College of Pharmacy Alumni Council, said it was “amazing” to have had the opportunity to personally present her grandfather with the well-deserved honor.

“It was incredibly fulfilling,” she said. “I’m so proud to be his granddaughter.”

But the moment perhaps meant most to Dr. Merry’s mother, and Dering’s daughter, Ally Dering-Anderson, PharmD, clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice at the UNMC College of Pharmacy. Dr. Dering-Anderson is a longtime faculty member who was herself honored by the graduating pharmacy students as Faculty Preceptor of the Year at the same ceremony.

These same students have heard from her over their four years about her dad, his impact on her and on the profession.

She’d thanked her father so many times. But this moment? To see him honored by the college, with his granddaughter presenting the award?

“It was magic,” Dr. Dering-Anderson said.

“I was OK until my daughter walked down,” she said. “If you’d have had a camera on the ‘middle’ pharmacist …”

That’s when the tears came.

How had Dering inspired not just one, but two generations of his descendants to follow him into the profession and to the UNMC College of Pharmacy?

He shrugged his shoulders when asked. He didn’t know.

But Dr. Ally did:

“You know that person, where you think, ‘If everything in the world goes perfectly, I get to be like them?’

“That’s how he did it,” Dr. Dering-Anderson said.