Area Residents Receive Mlk Jr. Service Award

Ten Inland Northwest residents have been recognized with a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Service Award from Washington State University. Five are listed today.

Alison MacLeod is a 1991 graduate of Pullman High School and the daughter of Susan and Douglas McLeod, Pullman. MacLeod, a senior English major, works with students of color as a peer mentor. Head of the Coalition of Women Students and Mujeres Unidas, she has served as an orientation counselor and senior editor of Shades of Crimson. She is president of the Golden Key Honor Society and is a member of the newly formed WSU Student Ambassadors for Diversity.

Talmadge Anderson, an activist for civil rights and black liberation, retired from WSU last year after 26 years as professor of comparative American cultures. Instrumental in developing WSU’s Black Studies program, he is the founder and former editor of the Western Journal of Black Studies. His “Introduction to Black Studies” textbook is used in colleges and universities across the nation.

Dionne Blue, interim counselor for the WSU African American Student Center, is a 1993 graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta who earned her master’s degree in education from WSU last year. She headed the committee that organized the 1996 WSU program honoring King. Her duties directing the center include providing academic advising and counseling for African American and other students of color. She is a member of Phi Delta Kappa.

Ron Halfmoon, who recruits Native American students, is a 1972 WSU biology graduate and president of Ku-Au-Mah Alumni Society, the Native American alumni organization. He is manager of the Nez Perce Tribe’s Tribal Employment Rights Office in Lapwai, Idaho, and was acting director of WSU’s Native American Studies program in the early ‘70s.

Ernestine Madison began working at WSU in 1990 as director of the Center for Human Rights and assistant to the president. In 1992 she was appointed the university’s first vice provost for human relations and resources.

Look for more winners in Thursday’s column

, DataTimes MEMO: Compiled by Maisy Fernandez. To tell us about your achievements and good deeds, write to Achievements, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210, or 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814.