Ennis and Wells win THEC's Highest Service Award
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (April 20, 2004) — For being good stewards of
their time and talents, Tennessee Tech University student Theresa
Ennis and professor Stuart “Doc”
Wells have been honored with the Tennessee Higher Education Commission’s
highest award for community service.
Recently named winners of THEC’s 2004 Rep. Harold Love Outstanding
Community Involvement Award, Ennis and Wells are two of five faculty/staff
members and five students selected from all of Tennessee's colleges and
universities for the honor.
Ennis, a senior secondary education English major, and Wells, a decision
sciences and management professor, each demonstrates ways to coordinate
their many roles in life so that they can best serve their communities.
Ennis — a wife, mother, full-time college student and TTU employee
— established a Cub Scout troop six years ago in Jackson County,
where no troop existed. She signed on as Cub Master and began recruiting
den leaders and organizing activities. Once the initial group of boys
became too old for Cub Scouts, she set up a Boy Scout troop.
She expanded her leadership role by training den leaders in several counties,
helping Nashville’s inner-city Scout program and directing summer
camp.
Although she devotes considerable time to scouting, Ennis also looks
to her campus community for volunteer opportunities. A hostess to two
TTU international students from India, she opens her home regularly for
meals and visits and takes them on outings, including rafting on the Ocoee
River.
Through a service organization, Ennis coordinated a food drive specifically
tailored to the needs of Hispanic families. Demonstrating her dedication
to children, she has coordinated a reading program, a children’s
book drive and a toy drive all through campus associations.
“I am convinced that she truly has a servant’s heart,”
said TTU President Bob Bell. “What’s more, she serves with a
smile on her face. There is not doubt she enjoys helping others.”
Ennis has received many awards for her volunteer and academic achievement.
She’s a three-time winner of the Boy Scouts of America’s Pathfinder
Award, as well as the Cub Master Award and the Roundtable Staff Award.
She has also conducted presentations at several sociology symposiums.
In addition to her multiple leadership roles in scouting, she is the
president of TTU’s Sociology/Criminal Justice Club, vice president
of the International English Honor Society and service chair for the Mortar
Board Gold Circle Chapter Honor Society.
A master at time management, Wells’ volunteer work had created a
dual role for the full-time professor. Wells serves as Chief Deputy of
the Putnam County Sheriff’s Reserve Unit and dedicates as many as
100 hours a month — for no pay — performing many of the same
duties as a regular deputy.
As chief, he is in charge of all reserve officers, coordinating their
training and recruiting, and maintains the fleet of patrol cars. He and
his officers support the Sheriff’s Department by working public events,
transporting prisoners, running traffic checkpoints, serving warrants
and covering other duties that free up the time of full-time law enforcement
officers.
Since becoming a sworn deputy in 1995, Wells has made numerous arrests,
assisted in manhunts, homicide investigations and emergency response efforts
and conducted investigations of physically and/or sexually abused children.
“While volunteering time in law enforcement is a non-traditional
community service, Doc Wells feels strongly that this is his way of giving
back to the area he loves so dearly,” said Bell. “His role as
a professor and law enforcement officer are quite complementary. Both
of these roles necessitate being a people person.”
In the classroom, Wells stresses to his students how what he teaches
can be applied to real world problems. Demonstrating that commitment,
he recently began a Computer Forensics Division for the Sheriff’s
Department that parallels his university class on the same subject.
Because of his dedication, the Sheriff’s Department saves the expense
of assigning a full-time deputy to oversee the reserve unit. Under Wells’
guidance, the unit saves the department the equivalent of eight and a
half full-time officers per month.
Wells and reserve officers also raise money for Triad, a Putnam County
home for children who have been displaced from their homes.
THEC recently hosted Ennis and Wells, along with other honorees, at a
luncheon at the Parkway Towers in Nashville. Each received a $1,000 award
for their service.
Previous winners of the award from Tennessee Tech include curriculum and instruction professor Margaret Phelps, and health and physical education professor LeBron Bell, basic business adviser Katie Kumar and students Lucas Yeary, Noreen Grisolano, Anna LaBar, Destiny Locke and Genetta Gibson. Previous staff winners include Sue Ellen Carter, Mary Ann Cummins, Pat King and Gay Shepherd.
--Karen Lykins
This information posted 20 April 2004