Dr. Charles M. Hendrix, a professor of parasitology at the Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine, hopes to use his skills as a teacher and scholar at the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) to promote a commitment to leadership skills, society, communication skills, health and wellness issues, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Dr. Hendrix was unanimously elected to succeed Dr. René A. Carlson as the AVMA Vice President for 2006-2007. As an educator, he pledged to work on behalf of the veterinarians of the future. Furthermore, as a world-record holding distance swimmer, Hendrix has urged veterinarians to follow a healthy diet and engage in 30 to 45 minutes of vigorous exercise daily.

Since he graduated in 1974 from the University of Georgia, where he received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree, the Greenville, South Carolina, native has swum at least one mile every day, which he estimates total over 20,000 miles today. In February of 1997, Dr. Hendrix set a world's record by swimming 358.01 miles in 28 days.

Following school, Dr. Hendrix served as a captain in the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps at the Dwight David Eisenhower Army Medical Center in Fort Gordon, Georgia, and from 1976 to 1981 he was a veterinary medical associate at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota, where he earned both a MS and a PhD.

In 1981, Dr. Hendrix joined the faculty at Auburn University, where he has received both the Norton Distinguished Teaching Award and the Auburn University Student Government Teacher of the Year Award twice. He has also been selected by Mortar Board Honorary as one of six outstanding educators on campus.

In 1998, Dr. Hendrix authored two veterinary parasitology textbooks, and during the 2002-2003 academic year, Hendrix served as an AAAS/AVMA Congressional Fellow in Washington, D.C. Dr. Hendrix has also developed educational outreach programs based on the Department of Health and Human Services' Secretary's Award for Innovations in Heath, a writing competition, for which Dr. Hendrix received a Certificate of Merit. For the past 10 years, Dr. Hendrix has been advising veterinary and other health profession students in the preparation of award-winning proposals for the Secretary's Award. Since 1999, his advisees have won this prestigious national writing competition a total of nine times.

Hendrix has been married to Rebecca Compton Hendrix for over 33 years, and they have one grown daughter, Charlotte.