Dominion to Honor Nine in 18th Annual Strong
Men & Women: Excellence In Leadership Educational Series
RICHMOND, Va. – Dominion, one of the nation’s
largest energy producers, will honor nine renowned African-Americans selected
for their accomplishments and leadership through its 18th annual Strong
Men & Women: Excellence
in Leadership educational series.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will be one of
the speakers at the awards gala tonight at the Richmond Marriott Hotel in downtown
Richmond.
Strong Men & Women highlights the accomplishments
of selected African-American role models and tells their stories in an educational
series distributed during Black History Month to more than 3,000 schools
across Dominion’s
natural gas and electric franchise service areas in Virginia, northeastern
North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
"If these nine honorees
are a sample of the role models the youth of today will emulate, then our world
is in good hands," said Thomas F.
Farrell II, chairman, president and chief executive officer. "One
of the responsibilities of today’s leaders is to mold the children of
today into the decision-makers of tomorrow and into good corporate and community
citizens."
Israel L. Gaither – first African-American
commander of the U.S. Salvation Army, Alexandria, Va.
Nikki Giovanni – renowned
poet, lecturer and distinguished professor at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg,
Va.
Ulysses
Hammond, J.D.* – vice president of administration
at Connecticut College, New London, Conn.
Rosalyn S. Hobson, Ph.D. – associate
dean, School of Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond,
Va.
Peter Lawson Jones – county commissioner in
Cuyahoga, Ohio.
Charlene J. Marshall* – first African-American
woman mayor in Morgantown, W.Va.
James McLurkin – leader in the
field of Distributed Robotic Systems, Boston, Mass.
Vivian W. Pinn, M.D. – first
full-time director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.
Esther H. Vassar – first
African-American woman appointed chair of theVirginia Department of Alcoholic
Beverage Control, Richmond, Va.
*Attending the
Cleveland, Ohio, ceremony Feb 7.
High school juniors and seniors in Virginia
and North Carolina participated in the Strong Men & Women: Excellence
in Leadership student writing
contest. The students were invited to write essays about an African-American
leader featured in the Strong Men & Women series. Winners
receive a Dell laptop, and their schools each receive a $1,000 cash award.
Emily Dutton – Massaponax High
School, Fredericksburg, Va.
Matthew James Mason – Frank
W. Cox High School, Virginia Beach, Va.
Chioma Urama – South County
Secondary School, Fairfax County, Va.
Warché Downing – Plymouth
High School, Plymouth, N.C.
Information about Strong Men & Women can
be found on the Internet at www.dom.com,
keyword "strong."
Dominion is one of the
nation's largest producers and transporters of energy, with a portfolio of
approximately 26,500 megawatts of generation, 7,800 miles of natural gas
transmission pipeline and 1 trillion cubic feet equivalent (Tcfe) of proved
natural gas and oil reserves. Dominion also owns and operates
the nation's largest underground natural gas storage system with about 960
billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves retail energy customers in
11 states. For
more information about Dominion, visit the company's Web site at http://www.dom.com.
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Editor's note: Biographies
of the honorees will be available at the awards ceremony. Video b-roll,
sound bites and media kits will be on hand for television stations; a downloadable
image of the honorees’ portrait
is available online, and photographs
will be available after Jan. 22.
