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Press Release -
National Rural Water Association
2915 S. 13th Street
Duncan, OK 73533
580-252-0629 FAX 580-255-4476
Contact: Kris R. Cash,
nrwakc@nrwa.org
Bob Gay, Harry Whalen and
Barbara Merrill Receive Dell Cornell Award
National Rural Water Association is pleased
to announce that Bob Gay, Virginia Rural Water Association; Harry
Whalen, Montana Rural Water Association and Barbara Merrill, National
Rural Water Association are the 2005 Dell Cornell Award winners.
This award is presented to individuals who,
under difficult personal circumstances, continued to contribute to Rural
Water and their association’s goals.
Bob Gay joined Virginia Rural Water
Association in July 2001 as their “Board Trainer” and has now moved into
the position of Wastewater Technician. Having served as a past member
of a city council, several boards, and other various city or town
committees; Bob had the knowledge on how to train boards and councils
alike. He prefers a “preventative maintenance” program rather than a
“just fix it” program. In May 2005, Bob had open-heart surgery. The
surgery did not stop him as he took care of his commitments prior to the
surgery and when he came back to work he arrived in full force and ready
for action.
Harry Whalen has served Montana Rural Water
Association for 17 years. After he was diagnosed with cancer in January
2005 and then surgery, he still maintained his normal work and travel
load. Even with the demands of a weekly chemo regimen, Harry still
manages to keep up with his job and dedication to Rural Water.
Barbara Merrill has been with National
Rural Water for over 20 years. She has held many positions at NRWA and
is currently the administrative assistant for the RUS programs. After a
tenuous round of surgeries on her neck and back which began in September
2004, Barbara returned to the Rural Water Family to continue her
dedicated work.
The NRWA Awards in Excellence program was
established to recognize the outstanding efforts of the Member State
Affiliates, their staff, and special members of the rural water
industry.
The National
Rural Water Association is a non-profit federation of State Rural Water
Associations. Its mission:
to provide state
associations with support services to meet the needs of their
membership. NRWA is America’s largest utility association with over
24,558 members.
Historically,
NRWA’s state associations have trained over 55,000 water and wastewater
system personnel each year for two decades. They also provide over
90,000 on-site technical assistance visits a year.
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