He taught at
Saint Cloud State College, in
St. Cloud, Minnesota, from 1959 to 1962 and at
Southern Illinois University, in
Carbondale, Illinois from 1962 to 1964. He later became chair of the Department of Speech at
Colorado State University. From 1966 to 1968, he served as a communications consultant for pharmaceutical company
Smith, Kline & French. Dedmon became the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at
Marshall University in 1968, and was appointed executive vice president the following year, becoming acting president of the University in 1970. In this role, he led the campus through the November 14, 1970,
plane crash in which 37 members of the
Marshall University Thundering Herd football team, eight members of the coaching staff, and 25 school
boosters were killed. The team was returning home after a 17-14 loss against the
East Carolina University Pirates at
Ficklen Stadium in
Greenville, North Carolina. Dedmon was portrayed by
David Strathairn in the movie
We Are Marshall, which details the aftermath of the crash and its effect on the school community. Dedmon spent much of the early 1990s away from Radford University on
sabbatical in
Hawaii in and later on medical leave during a lengthy recovery at his beach house in
South Carolina following major surgery due to a
ruptured spleen. Due to ill health Dedmon announced his retirement from Radford University in June 1994, but officially held the presidency while on medical leave until August 1995. His last public appearance at Radford University was in September 1995, when he spoke at the inauguration of his successor, Douglas Covington. The
Dedmon Center at Radford University was named in his honor. The 58,000-square-foot athletic center opened in 1981 and was renovated in 2009. In 2018, Dedmon was posthumously inducted in the
Radford University Athletics Hall of Fame. == Personal life ==