Awards/honors
■ Kimberly Shearer, an English teacher at Boone County High School, has been named 2012 Kentucky Teacher of the Year by Ashland Inc. and the Kentucky Department of Education.
Jenni Lou Jackson, an eighth-grade language arts teacher at Corbin Middle School in the Corbin Independent school district, was named 2012 Middle School Teacher of the Year.
Shearer and Jackson joined teachers from across the state honored with 2012 Ashland Inc. Teacher Achievement Awards. Jackson received $3,000 each and a customized, art-glass vase, while Shearer received $10,000 and a commemorative crystal-glass bowl. In addition, the Department of Education will provide a sabbatical or suitable alternative for Shearer, who also will represent the state in the 2012 National Teacher of the Year competition.
The remaining winners each received $500 cash awards.
Area teachers honored with Ashland's Teacher Achievement Awards in 2012 include:
Scott Cahill, science teacher, Bourbon County Middle School, Paris; second-grade teacher Kellie M. Little, Athens-Chilesburg Elementary, Lexington; Rachel Losch, visual arts teacher, Dixie Magnet Elementary School, Lexington; and Jocelyne A. M. Waddle, French/Spanish/English teacher at Frankfort Middle/High School, Frankfort.
■ Two University of Kentucky Opera Theatre students recently took honors at the 2012 National Opera Association Vocal Competition. Senior Reginald Smith Jr. took first place in the competition's scholarship division and graduate student Michael Preacely took third place in the competition's artist division.
The National Opera Association Vocal Competition is conducted annually in two divisions, scholarship, for singers between the ages of 18 and 24, and artist, for singers 25 to 40 years of age. Preliminary auditions for the competition are judged by recording. Preacely was one of only 10 finalists selected from across the nation to compete in the finals of the artist division. Smith was one of only eight finalists nationwide selected to compete in the scholarship division's live final audition. Joining Smith in the finals was UK senior Rebecca Farley, a native of Henderson.
As winner of the scholarship division, Smith received the Nicholas Vrenios Memorial Award, which includes a certificate and a cash prize of $2,000. For Preacely's third place finish in the artist division, the vocalist received the Clifford Bair Memorial Award, which includes a certificate and a cash prize of $750. Both students plan to use the funds to pursue further opera competitions and auditions.
■ The University of Kentucky's Martin School of Public Policy and Administration presented its inaugural Distinguished Alumni Award to Bob Wiseman at the school's annual Alumni and Friends Reception on Jan. 25 at the Hillary J. Boone Center.
Wiseman, UK vice president for facilities management, earned his master's in public administration degree from the Martin School in 1984.
Wiseman was appointed to his current post in 2004, after serving as associate vice president for facilities for more than a year. Previously, he served as Lexington commissioner of public works.
Wiseman has served as a member of the Campus Master Plan Committee, College Town Steering Committee and Martin School Board of Visitors. He was also involved in the initial creation of the UK Coldstream Research Campus on Newtown Pike in Lexington. He has also taught graduate-level courses in public administration at the Martin School.
■ The University of Kentucky Chellgren Center for Undergraduate Excellence has named three new Chellgren Endowed Professors. The professors are: Janet Eldred, English professor in the UK College of Arts and Sciences working on a special assignment to advance writing in the College of Engineering; Michael Kovash, professor of physics and astronomy in the UK College of Arts and Sciences; and Carl Lee, professor of mathematics in the UK College of Arts and Sciences.
Chellgren Endowed Professors maintain an active research program in their discipline; teach courses in one of the university's programs of excellence or within their college or department; and direct a specific project intended to advance progressive reform of undergraduate education.
■ University of Kentucky orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Christian Lattermann has been awarded an Innovative Research Grant from the Arthritis Foundation. The purpose of the two-year, $200,000 grant is to support research that can lead to better treatments for post-traumatic arthritis in patients after knee joint injuries.
Lattermann is an associate professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Sports Medicine at UK. As director of the UK Center for Cartilage Repair and Restoration, he has a special interest in patients who develop early arthritis after athletic injuries.
■ Dr. F. Douglas Scutchfield, director of the National Coordinating Center for Public Health Services and Systems Research and the Peter P. Bosomworth Professor of Health Services Research and Policy at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, has been named chair of the first Accreditation Committee of the Public Health Accreditation Board.
Jointly funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Public Health Accreditation Board was created to serve as the national, non-profit organization that administers the accreditation process for state, local, tribal, and territorial health departments.
