AWARDS/TRAINING

Chris Byrd, St. Francis Medical Center neurosciences nurse specialist, has been recognized as one of the top nurses in Missouri.

Byrd, who has held several nursing positions at St. Francis since joining the center in 1985, has received one of five Tribute to Missouri Nurses awards. The award program, now in its fourth year, is sponsored by the St. Louis University Hospital Auxiliary and the St. Louis University School of Nursing.

She will be honored during an award ceremony at Adam's Mark Hotel in St. Louis this month.

About 400 nurses from Missouri were nominated for this year's program, which is designed to recognized excellence in nursing. Of five awards presented annually, three are in the category of patient care and one each is in the categories of education-research and administration.

In addition to her patient-care responsibilities at the medical center, Byrd is a staff nurse in the critical-care center and serves as chairperson of the hospital's Clinical Resource Council. She is also instructor for both basic and advanced cardiac life-support classes and serves as an adjunct faculty member at Southeast Missouri State University's School of Nursing.

Byrd is the second St. Francis nurse to be honored through the Tribute to Missouri Nurses program over the past three years. In 1991, Marcia Southard-Ritter was honored in the nursing administration category.

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Dr. Theodore J. Glenn has been elected a fellow in the American Psychiatric Association.

Glenn has maintained a practice in child, adolescent and adult psychiatry in Cape Girardeau since 1978. He holds board certification from both the American Board of Psychiatry and the American Board of Family Practice, with offices at 53 Doctors' Park.

Glenn received his medical degree from Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

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Sharon Williams, owner of Williams Hearing Center in Cape Girardeau, was elected secretary of the Missouri Hearing Aid Society during the association's annual meeting and convention recently at Osage Beach.

The Missouri Hearing Aid Society was founded in the early 1950s, and has 195 members throughout the state.

Williams has been associated with the Williams Hearing Center since July 1988. She is board certified in hearing instrument sciences by the International Hearing Aid Society.

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Jim Burke, Jack Kramer and Bob Roloff, AAA insurance sales agents in the Cape Girardeau AAA office, have received AAA-Auto Club of Missouri's 1993 Gold Seal Agent awards.

The awards recognized agents for sales performance and services.

Burke joined the company in 1985, Kramer has been with the firm since 1960, and Roloff joined the firm in 1969.

The AAA-Auto C lub provides motoring, travel and insurance services to more than 560,000 AAA members in Missouri, Southern Illinois, Eastern Kansas and Arkansas.

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More than 500 Aid Association for Lutherans (AAL) volunteers attended the annual convention of the Missouri Federation of AAL Branches in Jefferson City recently.

In attendance from Cape Girardeau were Allen Clark, Rose Cooper, Laurine Dost, Erwin Dost, Bill Beggs, Joyce Hemmann, Steve Fritzler, Bob Hemmann and Shirley Beggs.

Eleven volunteers attended from Jackson. They were Paul Sides, Carl Loenneke, Darrel Seabaugh, Gladys Siebert, Elda Loenneke, Elfrieda Petzoldt, Orville Fluegge, Loretta Fluegge, Bill Elliott, Carolyn Sides, and Bette Seabaugh.

Other area residents who attended were Wesley and Viola Bock, Advance; Leonora and Elmer Winter, Frohna; Orville and Esther Bachmann and Curt Wills, all of Perryville; and Mary Wittmaier and Katherine Farmer, both of Poplar Bluff.

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Mike Backfisch and Steve Arnzen have been recognized for 25 years of service at Ford Groves Motor Co. in Cape Girardeau.

Backfisch, service department manager, is a graduate of the Nashville Auto Diesel College. He resides in Benton

Arnzen has completed all of he Ford Technical Training School, and specializes in automatic transmissions. He and his wife, Carole, reside in Cape Girardeau. They are parents of two children.

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Ann Swanson, manager of Gulliver's Travel Agency, recently returned from a nine-day visit to Argentina.

She visited the Valdes Peninsula, toured the Perito Moreno Glacier and the foothills of the Andes Mountains. Swanson also toured the Iguassu Falls on the border of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.

The trip was the fourth for Swanson to South America.

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Randy Whitworth was recently honored as Driver of the Year for Commercial Transport, Cape Girardeau Terminal.

Various other awards were presented during the company's annual safety awards banquet at the Drury Lodge.

Bruce Vick, Don Hensley and Eddie Farrow were recognized for having more than two million accident-free miles.

Others attending the banquet were: Robert White, executive president of Commercial Transport, Belleville, Ill.; Charlie Daniels, terminal manager; Jack McDaniel, safety director; Bob Stachovic, vice president of operations and sales; David Rice, Roger Bryant, Bernard Elfrank, Alvin Blades, Allen Skidmore, Dean Heaton, and Gary Foot.

Randy Griggs, zone representative for Great Western Casualty Co., was speaker.

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Lisa Elfrink, director of School Food Services for Cape Girardeau p ublic schools, has been elected secretary of the Missouri School Food Services Association.

Elfrink, a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University with a bachelor's degree in food and nutrition and a minor in business management and marketing, has been employed by the school district since 1989.

Prior to joining the district, she was director of dietary at Chaffee General Hospital. She was previously employed at the Chaffee Nursing Center as an assistant in the cafeteria department.

She is a member of the American School Food Service Association, Missouri School Food Service Association, Southeast Missouri School Food Service Directors Association and the Missouri Association of School Business Officials.

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Peggy Smith and Julie Southard of Unique Brides, 17 N. Main, recently attended the Dallas, Texas, International Apparel Market.

"We picked up a new line of wedding dresses and several new fall accessories," said Smith.