Community Service Award

Nomination Form for Linda Fink Service Award (HTML)

Nomination Form for Linda Fink Service Award (PDF 27KB)

Biography of Linda FInk (HTML)

Biography of Linda FInk (PDF 15KB)

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CU Years of Service Awards

Faculty/Staff Service Awards

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President's Award

The President's Award recognizes those whose lives have served as an example for others to emulate because of their service to others.

2008
William "Bill" Baker (PDF 958KB)

William "Bill" Baker was born in Bradshaw, McDowell County, and honored as a Distinguished West Virginian by Governor Bob Wise.

He earned a degree from Concord College and began his career in education as a mathematics teacher. He then directed federal programs, served as assistant superintendent for the Wood County school system, and superintendent of two county systems-Raleigh and Mercer. He served in the United States Army.

Public and community service includes having served as a leader on Concord College's Board of Advisors, president of the Raleigh County Commission, and a member of The Rotary Club. He has held positions of leadership in the United Way, serving organizations both in Raleigh and Mercer counties, and he served on the board of directors for the Beckley-Raleigh County, Greater Bluefield and the Princeton chambers of commerce. He served on the Raleigh County Public Library's board of trustees, and the Beckley-Raleigh County YMCA.

His involvement with economic development initiatives in southern West Virginia includes the following: serving as a member of the 4-C Economic Development Authority, Forward Southern West Virginia, Pinecrest Economic Development Authority, and executive director of the Jobs Foundation. In addition, he served as a member of the Mercer County Economic Development Authority, and the Mercer County Labor Management Board.

The Beckley-Raleigh County Chamber of Commerce named him Business Person of the Year in 2005.

*** His appointment, by the Governor, as the Vice Chair of the West Virginia Economic Development Grant Committee allowed him to recommend funding for a wide variety of efforts to bolster the state's economy-specifically supporting the Nick Rahall Technology Center at Concord University.

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1993
Corella Bonner

Corella Bonner, like her husband, was born into poverty. She began her journey in the rural town of Eagen, Tennessee. As a fourteen-year-old, after living in coal-mining towns in West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, Corella Allen, along with her mother, sought opportunity in the northern city of Detroit. Arriving penniless, the young Allen soon found work as a cashier at a cafeteria, attending Wayne State University at night, and making sure that her younger siblings went to school.

She worked her way up from cashier to manager and was eventually transferred to the Statler chain's New York hotel. It was there she met Bertram Bonner. They were married, four years later, in 1942.

The Bonners' involvement in community service emanated from their early work providing food for destitute families in Fort Lauderdale, where the Bonner family lived. When the Bonners moved in 1956 to Princeton, New Jersey, they began a broad-based ecumenical crisis ministry program housed in the Nassau Presbyterian Church.

She, along with her husband, Bertram, established the Bonner Foundation with the hope and, indeed the expectation, that the impact of their support would be far-reaching in the areas of hunger and education.

*** The Bonner Foundation of Princeton, New Jersey, funded the "Bonner Scholars" program at Concord in 1993.

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1988
U.S. Senator John D. "Jay" Rockefeller (D.-W.Va.)

Born in New York City to John D. Rockefeller III and Blanchette Ferry Hooker, Jay Rockefeller graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1954. He graduated from Harvard University in 1961 with a B.A. in Far Eastern Languages and History after having spent three years studying Japanese at the International Christian University in Tokyo.

After college, Rockefeller worked for the Peace Corps in Washington, D.C., under John F. Kennedy. He served as the operations director for the Corps' largest overseas program in the Philippines. He continued his public service in 1964-1965 as a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) volunteer under President Lyndon B. Johnson, during which he moved to Emmons, West Virginia.

The Senator has contributed to numerous educational causes, both financially and through governmental action as West Virginia governor (1977-1985) and subsequently as a Senator. He obtained firsthand experience concerning the challenges of higher education while serving as president of West Virginia Wesleyan College.

His oft-stated support of volunteerism and civic responsibility reflects his initial days in West Virginia as a VISTA worker.

*** Senator Rockefeller helped the first Quest hike (1988) build momentum by challenging school children to walk with him the first mile of the trek, through the town of Union.

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1988
Arthel "Doc" Watson

According to Doc on his three CD biographical recording Legacy, he got the nickname "Doc" during a live radio broadcast when the announcer remarked that his given name Arthel was odd and he needed an easy nickname to go by. A fan in the crowd shouted "Call him Doc!" presumably in reference to the Sherlock Holmes sidekick Doctor Watson. The name stuck ever since.

An eye infection caused Doc Watson to lose his vision before his first birthday. Despite this, he was taught to work hard and care for himself by his parents. He attended North Carolina's school for the visually impaired, The Governor Morehead School, in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Doc Watson is a part of America's musical heritage. The blind singer of traditional ballads and melodies of southern Appalachia is a native of Deep Gap, North Carolina. Frets Magazine calls him "possibly the greatest living American practitioner in the ancient art of folk minstrelsy."

In 1986 he received the North Carolina Award and in 2000 he was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor. In 1997, Doc received the National Medal of the Arts from President Clinton.

*** Doc entertained guests at several concerts in 1988 during Concord's "Quest for Scholars."