Local Rotarian was finalist for Service to Humanity award

Every year, each of Rotary Club's 532 districts, organized into 34 zones, has the opportunity to nominate a candidate for the Rotary Foundation Global Alumni Service to Humanity Award.

Dan B. Cotner was among the finalists for 2006-2007, but did not win.

He is a member of Zone 29, District 6060.

Cotner received seven Rotary Volunteer Grants over the past two decades to provide dental care in many countries.

The earliest Rotary-sponsored humanitarian effort to provide dental care was in 1988 at Esperanza Clinic in Santarem, Brazil.

Before that, Cotner's volunteer services, which began in 1968, were sponsored by Catholic and Presbyterian missions or were self-funded.

Other Rotary sponsored dental care projects were in 1991 at Rio Dulce, eastern Guatemala; 1996 at Mulege, Mexico where he established a prosthetic department; 1997 at Mulege, his first repeated location; 1998 at Kilimombogo, Kenya; 2001 at Mae Sai, Thailand; 2001 at Chennai, India.

Cotner has provided his dental expertise at 16 volunteer opportunities to needy people in countries outside the United States.