National Lifesaving Award, Clara Barton Volunteer Awards Top Annual Meeting
News Release: September 30, 2003
Contact: Janice Osborne, Director-Communications and Marketing
(610) 865-4400, ext. 262
The American Red Cross of the Greater Lehigh Valley will bestow national and local awards on six Greater Lehigh Valley residents and five organizations at its 86th annual meeting to be held Tuesday, Sept. 30, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:15 p.m at Iacocca Hall, Lehigh University’s Mountaintop Campus, Bethlehem.
National American Red Cross awards include the Lifesaving Award for the Professional Responder, and the Clara Barton Honor Award for Meritorious Volunteer Leadership. The Lifesaving Award for the Professional Responder is one of the highest awards given by the Red Cross to an individual or team of individuals who saves or sustains a life by using skills and knowledge learned in a Red Cross Health and Safety Services course. The Clara Barton Honor Award is the highest award the American Red Cross bestows on volunteers. It recognizes meritorious service in volunteer leadership positions held over a period of years. Recipients of the award are inducted into the Clara Barton Honor Society.
Receiving the Lifesaving Award for the Professional Responder is Pen Argyl police officer Steven B. Horvath for saving the life of an 18-month-old boy who fell into a hot tub last year. The boy was found in the hot tub by his father who removed him from the water and immediately called 911. Officer Horvath, trained in Red Cross emergency response, arrived at the scene and checked the infant for breathing and a pulse. Finding neither, Horvath started CPR. Minutes later, a second officer arrived at the scene and together they performed two-person CPR until the paramedics arrived.
Local American Red Cross volunteers Ruth Shiers, formerly of Coopersburg and now residing in Fombell, Pa.; and Alma Zern of Lehighton, will be presented with the Clara Barton Honor Award for Meritorious Volunteer Leadership. Shiers and Zern were nominated by their peer Red Cross volunteers.
Zern began her Red Cross career more than 50 years ago at the former Carbon County Red Cross as a coordinator of blood services in Lehighton. As blood services coordinator, Zern recruits the Red Cross volunteers needed to conduct six blood drives a year in Lehighton. Through her efforts, it’s estimated that more than 1,875 gallons of blood were donated to area hospitals to help save lives. Last year, Zern received the Recognition for Extraordinary Personal Action Award. Her volunteer work extends beyond Red Cross and into other areas of the community including Bethany Evangelical Congregational Church, where she has taught Sunday School for pre-school-age children for more than 50 years.
Shiers, a retired registered nurse and certified nurse midwife, began her Red Cross career at the Chapter in 1998 as a disaster action team member in family services, mass care, and disaster health services. She volunteered in a number of other capacities including evaluator for the nurses aide competency evaluation program; chairwoman of the Chapter’s Nurses Group (which she created) and special events volunteer. She served as a disaster services volunteer on two national disasters: the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and Tropical Storm Chataan in Guam in July 2002. During her tenure, she was named the first-ever Red Cross state nurse liaison for eastern Pennsylvania and soon became the only Pennsylvania state nurse liaison for the following two years. The state nurse liaison is a national headquarters-appointed position through the Office of the Chief Nurse. In that role, she worked with the national Red Cross nursing program to identify, monitor and address issues relevant to nursing in the Red Cross. She has continued her Red Cross volunteer role at the Beaver County Chapter of the Red Cross in western Pennsylvania. Shiers’s background includes general medical and surgical nursing, pediatrics, mental health, camp nursing, a stint in the Peace Corps as a nurse in Africa, as well as being the co-founder and co-owner of the Allentown Bethlehem Birth and Midwifery Center.
Other awards to be presented at the annual meeting are: The Good Neighbor Award, given to local businesses, corporations and agencies that have provided significant, ongoing support to the Red Cross; the Workplace Training Award in recognition for a company’s or agency’s commitment to provide Red Cross training in lifesaving skills to their employees; and the Tiffany Award for Employee Excellence, in recognition of superior job performance demonstrated by an employee of the American Red Cross.
Good Neighbor Award winners are: Penske Truck Leasing in Allentown for their gift-in-kind gift policy; radio station WZZO Z-95 of Whitehall for their spontaneous fund-raising efforts during Sept. 11, 2001, and for promoting a prepaid phone card campaign for troops during Operation Iraq Freedom; and Concern Treatment Unit for Boys I in Lehighton for their continued support in setting up equipment and supplies in preparation for Red Cross blood drives.
Workplace Training Awards will be presented to GEO Specialty Chemicals of Allentown and Minerals Technologies of Easton in recognition of their long-term commitment to providing Red Cross CPR, first aid and automated external defibrillator training to their employees.
The Tiffany Award for Employee Excellence will be presented to Janice Osborne, director of communications and marketing at the local Red Cross.
Special recognition will be given to Randy Lariar of Bethlehem and Kyle Hoffman of Coopersburg who chose the Red Cross for their Eagle Scout projects. Lariar coordinated a daylong community disaster preparedness program at Liberty High School; Hoffman built an office in the Chapter’s Disaster Operations Center.
During the business portion of the meeting, Richard Perrotti, outgoing board chairman, will be recognized for his seven years of service to the agency. Also recognized will be outgoing board members Don Bauman, Barbara Bigelow, Joseph Fritz and Susanne Kauffman. In addition, the following individuals will be elected to the board for a three-year term: Dona Fisher, vice president and chief financial officer at Binney & Smith, Inc.; George Hlavac, attorney at law at Tallman Hudders & Sorrentino; Dawn Washington, director of Ways to Work Family Loan Program; and Thomas Brown, vice president finance and chief financial officer at The Morning Call.
For more information about the Red Cross, call (610) 865-4400, or visit www.redcrosslv.org.
The American Red Cross of the Greater Lehigh Valley serves more than 660,000 residents in Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties. Last year the Red Cross provided health and safety education training and emergency relief services to more than 20,000 Greater Lehigh Valley residents. For more information about your local Red Cross or volunteer opportunities, call (610) 865-4400 or visit www.redcrosslv.org.
