(Posted June 14, 2002)


HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Juniata College presented five alumni-related awards Saturday, June 8 during Alumni Assembly, part of "Juniata College Alumni Weekend 2002: Relive, Revisit, Reflect." Huntingdon resident and former Juniata professor Wilfred Norris was awarded the Harold B. Brumbaugh Alumni Service Award; Carson City, Nev. resident Robert Rose, Nevada Supreme Court Justice, received the Alumni Achievement Award; Scotch Plains, N.J. resident Michael Barnett received the Young Alumni Achievement Award; and Blue Bell resident Dr. Arthur Hayes, medical director of the Montgomery County Regional Emergency Medical Service, and his wife, Jill Hayes, an elementary school teacher in the Wissahickon School District, received the William E. Swigart Jr. Alumni Humanitarian Award.

In addition, Dr. C. Beth Farrell, a resident of King City, Ore., received the 2001 William E. Swigart Jr. Alumni Humanitarian Award at the ceremony.
Robert Rose, a 1961 graduate of Juniata and a justice of the Nevada Supreme Court, has remained a significant financial supporter of the college since graduation. He was re-elected to a second six-year term as Nevada Supreme Court Justice in 2000 and plans to retire at the end of his term.

The Carson City, Nev. resident earned a bachelor's degree in history from Juniata, where he received the Richard Simpson Scholarship. He earned a juris doctor degree from New York University Law School in 1964, where he received the school's Root-Tilden Scholarship. After graduation he worked for the Nevada Supreme Court as a law clerk until 1965. He joined the Reno, Nev.-based law firm Goldwater, Taber and Hill in 1965.

In 1970 he left private practice to pursue the office of Washoe County District Attorney. He was elected as district attorney and served in that office until 1975. He was elected as lieutenant governor of Nevada in 1974 and served in that office through 1979. In 1979, he returned to private practice at his law firm, Cochrane and Rose, and maintained his practice until 1986.

He was appointed District Court Judge for Nevada in 1986 and was elected Nevada Supreme Court Justice in 1988. He served as Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court from 1993 to December 1994. He was re-elected to the Supreme Court in 1994.

He serves as the attorney for the American Cancer Society and worked as board member and attorney for the Nevada Easter Seal Society from 1979 to 1984. He was chairman of the Nevada Democratic Party from 1968 to 1970, and served as chairman of the Nevada Judicial Assessment Commission, a blue ribbon panel that evaluates past and future court performance in Nevada.

He was named 1988 Judge of the Year by the Nevada Association of Police and Sheriffs. He also received the 2000 Unity Award from the Nevada Network Against Domestic Violence. As a Supreme Court justice, he modernized the Nevada court system, including the computerization of all Nevada courts.

Wilfred Norris, professor emeritus of physics at Juniata, earned a summa cum laude bachelor's degree in chemistry from Juniata in 1954. He retired from the college in 1998, but remains active in such alumni-related activities as admissions open houses and student interviews.

He studied physics and chemistry as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Tuebingen in Germany from 1954 to 1955 and earned a doctorate in physical chemistry from Harvard University in 1963. He joined the Juniata faculty in 1958 as a physics instructor. He was promoted to assistant professor in 1959 and was named associate professor in 1963. In 1966 he was named William I. and Zella B. Book Professor of Physics. He received the Beachley Faculty Distinguished Service Award in 1993.

Norris has mentored many Juniata students during his career, but one of his research students, William Phillips, a 1970 graduate, received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997. Norris attended the ceremony as Phillips' guest.
Norris served as Juniata's dean from 1971 to 1972 and served as provost and academic dean from 1973 to 1977. He was chair of the physics department from 1963 to 1970 and from 1987 to 1998.

He is member of a number of professional organizations, including the American Physical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, the Society of Physics Students and the Optical Society of America. He also was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science until 2000.

Norris also has served on or chaired a number of Juniata internal committees. He also remains very active in his community. He is a founding member of the Huntingdon Arts Council, served as the council's president from 1991 to 1995 and has served on its board of directors since 1989. He has been an active member of the Stone Church of the Brethren since 1958, currently serving as board chair, and as board chair from 1987 to 1989. He also is a member of the Huntingdon Rotary Club, serving as president from 1988 to 1989.

He is director of the Moore Street Pro Musica and has served as choir director at the Stone Church of the Brethren.

Arthur Hayes, a 1971 graduate of Juniata, earned a bachelor's degree in biology. He earned his medical degree from the Thomas Jefferson University School of Medicine in 1975.

After medical school Dr. Hayes served an internship and residency at the Philadelphia Naval Regional Medical Center from 1975 to 1978. He joined the staff of the center in 1978 and was named director of the cardiopulmonary lab in 1979. He was chief of internal medicine at the center from 1979 to 1981.

He became senior medical officer at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1981, until leaving in 1982 to accept a position as executive director of the Montgomery Hospital Emergency Department. He was promoted to associate director in 1986 and to chairman of the department in 1989. He also served as director of the Montgomery Hospital Corporate Health Department from 1988 to 1992.

He also retired from the U.S. Naval Reserve Medical Corps with the rank of captain. While in the reserves, he was assistant director of Fleet Hospital 15 in Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia in 1991, and director of Fleet Hospital 22 in Fort Dix, N.J. from 1996 to 1997.

He is a Fellow and a member in the American College of Emergency Physicians. He also is a member of the National Association of EMS Physicians and served on a variety of committees at Montgomery Hospital. He was named Physician of the Year in 1995 by Pennsylvania Emergency Health Services.

Jill Hayes earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education from Juniata College in 1969. She also has taken graduate education courses at Penn State University and Temple University.

She worked as an elementary school teacher in the Southern Huntingdon School District and the Colonial School District. She worked as a substitute teacher in the Wissahickon School District and taught third grade at Twin Spring Farm private school. She has taught fourth and fifth grade in the Wissahickon School District from 1992 to 2002.

She has served on a variety of committees for the Wissahickon School District. She also is a member of the Wissahickon Educational Association, the Pennsylvania State Educational Association and the National Educational Association.

Michael Barnett, a 1989 graduate of Juniata College, earned a bachelor's degree in marketing. He is a principal with PowerPact LLC in New York, N.Y., a promotions marketing services company specializing in campaigns creatively linking a client's brand with a local event. Previously, he was senior vice president of Chancellor Marketing Group in New York from 1998 to 2000.

He started his business career in 1989 as an account executive with the radio station B103.7 in Richmond, Va. He was sales manager of radio station EAGLE 106 in Philadelphia from 1990 to 1993. He went on to serve as director of business development for WBOS/WSSH in Boston from 1993 to 1994, and was named national sales manager for WINK 104 in Harrisburg, Pa. in 1994. He was director of the CBS Promotions Group from 1994 to 1995.

Barnett volunteers extensively for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which raises funds for breast cancer research.

A resident of King City, Ore., Dr. C. Beth Ferrell, graduated from Juniata in 1948 and earned her medical degree from the Temple University School of Medicine in 1953. She and her husband, Bert, also a doctor, worked at their own medical practice in Oregon for 11 years. The couple closed their practice and left the United States in 1967 to open and establish a medical facility in the jungles of Borneo, Indonesia.

The couple developed the center from a small clinic into a 126-bed hospital with hydroelectric power, a government-certified nursing school, three satellite clinics and pediatric and pre-natal services. The couple also established a three-year nursing school program that graduates about 40 students per year. The hospital also established community health programs in more than 70 jungle villages.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.