Posted by DG Paddy Rooney
One of the things that we regularly do at our annual is recognize and give awards to individuals who have made significant contributions to the work of District 7390 over the years. Since our District Conference is cancelled I wanted to announce the recipients of the awards for this year and publicly thank them for their service to make our District and Rotary as a whole a stronger and better force for good in the world.
 
Our most distinguished award is the Service Above Self award which is given by the Board of Directors of Rotary International. There are only a few given out each year and I am pleased to tell you our recipient this year is Dr. Jess Socrates from the Rotary Club of Hanover. Jess has done amazing work for the past few years in providing funds to support efforts in the Philippines through a project called Operation Braveheart which has worked to provide heart operations for more than 140 children. For this work and for his numerous other contributions to his club, the District and RI, are pleased to give this award to Jess.
 
Our Life Time Achievement award recognizes someone who, over at least 25 years of service to Rotary, has contributed significantly to work of Rotary while at the same time modeling what it truly means to give Service Above Self. Our recipient for this year is a person who has shown both commitment and dedication to Rotary for almost 50 years at the Rotary Club of York and whose service has been exemplary. But the one of the most important characteristics of PDG Dr. Ben Hoover is his modesty in all that he has done and continues to do. He has served not only Rotary but his community over the years first and foremost as a well-respected physician and but also as Board member and chair of a number of community organizations including York College. For all of this work, commitment and dedication, we are pleased to offer Dr. Hoover this recognition and award.
 
Our Outstanding Service Award is given to someone who has made an important but often little recognized contribution to the work of our District and Ed Hauck from the Rotary Club of Lancaster is just such a person. Ed is currently the chair of our Global Scholar and Peace Scholar awards committee. Each year Ed and his committee meet to select a person who will take graduate work at a University somewhere in the world in one of the Rotary six areas of service. In addition they would interview any candidates for our Rotary Peace Scholar award. The work of this committee is important since Rotary and our District combined provide a stipend of $30,000 for each Global Scholar. Ed has been more than diligent in following through with our recipients, seeing that the reports are due and caring for innumerable details. For all of this work and his support of our District we are pleased to recognize Ed with this award.
 
The Dogged Pursuit Award is given every year to a person who has, literally as well as figuratively pursued some goal on behalf of our District and has been persistent about achieving that goal. Steve Grubb, from the Rotary Club of Mechanicsburg North has shown such doggedness and persistence. Steve is the chair of our 4 Way Essay Contest which is held for Junior High School students each year. The students write an essay which reflects the theme of our 4 Way Test and what it means to them. Like the students of our 4 Way Speech Contest, these students learn about Rotary and can use this forum as a way to express their Service Above Self. Steve has, over the years, worked hard with these students and helped sustain this program on behalf of our District. For all that doggedness we are pleased to offer Steve this award.
 
Given that are not having a District Conference at which these awards would generally be presented, we will now give them out at their club meetings when we get back to normal. The dates for each of these awards will be announced in our District Newsletter.
 
In our common service
DG Paddy Rooney