Thirteen area residents were among 23 West Virginians honored Thursday (Nov. 14) by the West Virginia University Extension Service (WVU-ES) during its annual recognition program at WVU Jackson’s Mill near Weston.


The local honorees, all WVU employees, were Margaret L. Baughman (Individual Performance Excellence); Benjamin F. Bradley (Individual Performance Excellence); David R. Cormier (New Employee Excellence); Richard Fleisher, Dara Shaw and Maria Camilla Jaramillo (Team Program Excellence); Sanjay Shah (Outstanding Developing Researcher); William L. Shockey (Professional Improvement Excellence); and Brian Westfall, Kim Suder, Linda Hildebrand, Joyce Clark and Colette Garlow (New Program Excellence).


Baughman, a communications developer, was honored for her creativity, drive and talent and her ability to deliver Extension’s message of”helping people put knowledge to work.”She has developed many exhibits, brochures, print advertisements and videos for Extension programs, including Dining with Diabetes, 4-H, Fall-Safe and Active for Life. Baughman developed the marketing strategies for the first National Alternative Fuels Vehicle Odyssey and designed an exhibit for the Barbour County Extension office, which showcases the area’s youth and community activities.


Bradley is a program assistant in the Knapp Hall mail room. He was praised for his dedicated and efficient work and a commitment to providing quality mail service to the WVU Extension Service and the School of Applied Social Sciences employees in Knapp Hall. Because of recent national events, Bradley and his co-workers took extra steps to ensure safe mail reception and distribution throughout the building. Bradley has conducted many penalty mail seminars statewide to show Extension employees how to properly mail items using federal funds.


Cormier is an Extension specialist in the Institute for Labor Studies and Research (ILSR). The innovative development of outreach programs statewide and new labor studies courses earned him the New Employee Excellence award. His efforts increased the ILSR ’s course offerings for federal sector unions. He has taught new courses in state workers’compensation, federal collective bargaining and union steward training. He is leading a large economic development project, which includes an ongoing research initiative, and a study of the state’s Economic Development Strategy for the West Virginia AFL -CIO.


Fleisher is an Extension specialist in the Center for 4-H, Youth, Family and Adult Development. Shaw is a lecturer and Jaramillo is a graduate student in WVU ’s Department of Foreign Languages. They were part of a nine-person team of WVU faculty and staff and Wayne County school personnel who developed a unique program titled”Language and Cultural Education Capacity-Building Partnership: Elementary Schools in West Virginia and Guanajuato, Mexico.”Students at FortGay and GenoaElementary Schools learned Spanish from WVU and WayneCounty faculty members and communicated by e-mail with elementary school students in Guanajuato, Mexico.


Shah is an Extension specialist in the Center for Agriculture, Natural Resources and Community Development. His ability to develop solutions that use the newest technologies to enhance the state’s agricultural productivity earned him the 2002 researcher award. He led a research project that evaluated a bench-scale wheat straw biofilter’s ability to remove pollutants from dairy farm wastewater. Shah is currently developing a plot-scale machine that applies poultry litter below the soil’s surface. This fertilization method increases crop production and reduces pollutant runoff from the soil.


Shockey is an Extension agent based in PrestonCounty. A commitment to learning the latest agriculture-related information and sharing that knowledge with local and statewide residents earned him this honor. He finished six credit hours in WVU ’s Agriculture Education program. Shockey recently completed the requirements to maintain his nutrient management certification in West Virginia and Maryland, and obtained a nutrient management license in Maryland. He provides timely agricultural information through his Sunday column in The Dominion Post.


Westfall is director of Extension Human Resources. Suder serves as the recruitment manager, Hildebrand as benefits and classification manager, and Clark and Garlow are human resources assistants. They created an innovative program that educates new employees about the WVU Extension Service’s structure, mission and objectives. The three-day event informs participants about programs and services available to them and gives them a chance to meet other Extension employees and administrators.


The WVU Extension Service provides educational opportunities in local communities through county-based offices in each of the state’s 55 counties. WVU -ES’s five major program initiativesleadership development, rural and community-based economic development, youth development, workforce development, and health educationare accomplished in partnership with individuals, families, businesses, civic groups and governmental organizations statewide and nationally.