Honor Roll
Recognizing the accomplishments of Western New Yorkers
Robert Drake has been named to the board of directors of the Police Athletic League of Buffalo. Drake is an active member of the New York State Government Finance Officers Association and the New York State Association of School Business Officials. He also is a volunteer
at the Burchfield Penny Art Center, where he serves on the fundraising committee.
The Police Athletic League supports youth programming at seven community centers in the city, offering boys and girls golf, tennis and skating programs. It also operates year-round basketball leagues and summertime baseball leagues, and produces a variety of events like the New Year’s Eve Ball Drop and the Gus Macker 3- on-3 Basketball Tournament.
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Fredonia State College English professor Aimee Nezhukumatathil has won the Pushcart Prize and the Balcones Poetry Prize.
Her poem “Love in the Orangery” won the Pushcart, a prestigious American literary prize honoring the best poetry, short fiction, essays or other literature published by small presses over the previous year. As a result, the poem will be published in the anthology “Pushcart Prize 2009: Best of the Small Presses.”
Also, the Balcones Center for Creative Writing at Austin Community College selected her book “At the Drive-In Volcano,” in which her award-winning poem is published, as the winner of its Balcones Poetry Prize. The award cites her work as an outstanding book of poetry published during the year.
Fredonia has honored Nezhukumatathil with the Hagan Young Scholar/Artist Award, and she holds a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Activities from the State University of New York.
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Two Alfred University alumni have been named to the university’s board of trustees. Elected to three-year terms are Stephen K. Heine, who graduated in 1981, and Warren L. Smith, a 1959 graduate.
Smith, who earned his B. A. in economics from Alfred, is currently second vice president of the Alumni Council and has been a member of the council for five years. He has been involved with class reunions, serving as reunion coordinator in 1999 and 2004.
As a graduate from the College of Business, Heine was honored as the Alfred University Outstanding Senior. He is a past member of the Alfred University board of trustees, serving as an alumni elected trustee from 1995 to 1998 and the School of Business Executive Advisory Council.
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Jordan Gerow, a senior at UB, has just finished an all-expenses- paid week of grass-roots educational training in Boston. Led by experts from Greenpeace and other organizations, the training focused on how to take on global challenges, including how to run successful global warming advocacy campaigns.
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Dr. Andrew J. Luisi Jr. will serve until 2009 as a New York State representative of the American College of Cardiology. Luisi, who specializes in adult cardiology and cardiovascular imaging, recently joined Buffalo Medical Group.
He graduated from St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute and Canisius College, and earned his medical degree in 1997 at the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
