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TxDLA Presents Awards at Annual 2008 Conference

The Texas Distance Learning Association (TxDLA) annual conference was held at the Moody Gardens Hotel and Convention Center on historic Galveston Island March 24-27, 2008. This was the largest such gathering in the state of Texas. 

With a dynamic and diverse membership, it comes as no surprise to learn of the achievements and advances made in distance education by TxDLA’s members and partners. All of the award recipients honored at the conference were nominated by their colleagues within TxDLA. 

TxDLA takes pride in recognizing the following individuals, institutions, and corporations for their outstanding contributions to the organization itself as well as the field of distance learning. 

The Don Foshee Award for Outstanding Leadership goes to a TxDLA Board Member, Officer, or Committee Chair who has shown a strong personal commitment, given generously of their time, and provided vigorous support for other TxDLA members to become leaders in the Association. This award was presented to Ken Conn of Data Projections. Ken has given thousands of hours of his personal time, effort, and energy leading and supporting TxDLA, working tirelessly to motivate a variety of people to serve on committees, looking well beyond the core group of active members and finding ways to utilize the vast talents found in the TxDLA membership. This award recognizes that level of commitment. 

The Don Foshee Memorial Grant is awarded in recognition of exceptional ideas and talents applied in a thoughtful, fun and creative manner delivered through distance learning. Roxanne Glaser, Education Service Center Region 12, was the recipient of one of these $2,000 grants funded by Trapeze Networks. The Severe Weather Safety program will be a partnership with News 10 and involve students creating and publicizing weather safety plans via the web and other multimedia technologies. 

Tommy Bearden, Distance Learning Coordinator at the Region 14 Education Service Center, was the recipient of the second $2,000 grant funded for the third consecutive year by VBrick Systems. Four campuses in Region 14 will be delivering educational content to students across the nation. Topics include: Texas Black Gold, Wind Power, Fire Ants: The Real Ant Bully, and Cotton: Plant of Many Uses. With funding made possible from the Don Foshee Memorial Grant, Region 14 will pay the $50 fee for each program for any school across the world that requests one of the programs available from Region 14 schools. 

The John A. Baker Memorial Award for Excellence in K-12 Distance Learning is awarded to Pam Dooley, from Northside ISD. This award recognizes Pam’s commitment to excellence in teaching. She is not only an exceptional teacher, but also teaches and mentors others. 

The Outstanding Commitment to Excellence awards honor the person, institution or corporation that has done the most to benefit and advance the applied practice of distance learning during the past year. There are two of these awards: Individual and Organization. 

Shane Howard from Education Service Center Region 12 is the recipient of the Individual award. Shane’s technical skills keep all video conference endpoints and connections running smoothly and his creative talents are shared through his “Singing with Shane” programs which have served over 5,000 pre-kindergarten through first grade students throughout the state. 

The Outstanding Commitment to Excellence award in the Organization category goes to Humble ISD, with Angela Conrad, coordinator. Humble ISD has taken the lead in providing their own content, both with online courses and collaborative videoconference opportunities. Students have the opportunity to connect with others throughout the world. The tremendous growth in the district requires using distance learning as a solution to many district challenges.” 

The Outstanding Commitment to Service awards fall into three classifications: individual, institution and corporate. These awards are presented to the most committed individuals and organizations: those who “made things happen” for TxDLA in the past year. 

Terry Comingore of Brazosport College is the recipient of the Outstanding Commitment to Service – Individual award. Terry has served in numerous roles over the years including program chair for the 2006 annual conference, finance committee chair, and has been active in Fall Leadership Workshops and the Gulf Coast regional group. He has served as the association’s Treasurer and chairs the finance committee. He works closely with the Officers and with the Association Manager to ensure all financial matters are in order.

Texas State Technical College receives the award for Outstanding Commitment to Service – Institution. This institution has been a strong supporter of TxDLA for many years. Lance Zimmerman, who has been a member of TxDLA’s Board of Directors for several years, always generously contributes the printing of the annual conference program in exchange for partnership recognition.

The Outstanding Commitment to TxDLA – Corporation award is presented to Data Projections. Data Projections is a benchmark to what excellence and commitment by a TxDLA corporate partner should look, sound, and feel like for many years now. They have continued to be one of the major monetary supporters of TxDLA through their participation at all TxDLA conferences since 2002 as a partner and/or exhibitor.

TxDLA expresses it's appreciation to Gen Quintanilla for designing and fabricating the outstanding award display as shown in the photo above. Gen is an Art Director that works as an independent contractor for the film and television commercial industry. It should be noted that Quintanilla also was responsible for the excellent award display used during the TxDLA 2007 conference.