Dr. Ken Hechler, former West Virginia Congressman and Secretary of State, and a military historian, political and environmental activist and author, is one of three people honored with a 2010 Berea College Service Award at the College’s recent annual Service Awards event.  Also presented service awards were Mr. Daymon Morgan, of Leslie County, Ky., former president of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and Berea College alumnus Mr. Pat W. Wear II, senior vice-president of Wilson Resources, Inc. who has helped thousands of people with developmental disabilities in his career.

The Berea College Service Award was established in 1978 to recognize persons who have rendered outstanding service to our society in achieving the ideals of Berea College’s Great Commitments.  The awards are sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Learning Through Service (CELTS) and the Willis D. Weatherford Campus Christian Center.

Ken Hechler, now 95 years old, has spent a lifetime in public service.  As a Congressman (1959-77) he was the principal author of the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, the first legislation to provide strict safety standards for miners, and he fought to keep the New River from being dammed by the Appalachian Power Company.  Prior to his political service, Hechler worked in the Truman White House, which he later documented in his book “Working with Truman.”  Last year, he and scores of others gathered in Sundial, W.Va. to dramatize surface mining, deep mining and global warming.

Octogenarian Daymon Morgan has been fighting surface mining for several decades.  After retiring from his job in Ohio, he returned to his family’s land in Leslie County, Ky. and learned that the mineral rights for some of the land had been sold by his sibling to a coal company which had begun removing coal using mountaintop removal.  Incensed, Morgan joined Kentuckians for the Commonwealth to try and save his land but also to fight to preserve land throughout the Commonwealth.  He became president of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and went on to rally for the state-wide referendum on the broad-form deed, which passed in 1988.  

Pat Wear, a Berea native and 1971 Berea College graduate, has spent more than 30 years in service to people with developmental disabilities.  Working within systems that support those with disabilities, he has promoted moving developmentally disadvantaged persons from large-scale institutionalized settings to decentralized community settings in Kentucky, Florida, Illinois and Oklahoma.  To date, he has been responsible for the successful transfer of more than 2,000 persons.  In 2004, Wear became Commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Mental Health, where he helped to establish a statewide adult crisis intervention system that helps individuals in need of support live in community homes or their own homes without fear of being institutionalized.  In his current position with Wilson Resources, Wear is responsible for promoting web-based technology to support persons with disabilities in their homes.