This article was published in The Cleveland Daily Banner on June 4, 2021:

While local communities are getting back to a semblance of normalcy, 2020 was a time of watching and waiting to see if COVID-19 was going to affect everyone’s way of life for even longer than expected.

 

During that year, many individuals, groups and businesses put their community first. Some of these special people will be recognized at Cleveland State Community College’s sixth annual Community First Awards and Gala on Tuesday, Sept. 21.

 

Nominations for these awards were to be sent in by May 31, but that deadline has been extended to June 15 by CSCC President Dr. Bill Seymour.

 

“We're going to extend it through the 15th and give it two more weeks. I think that’s really important because of the change in date, and since we have a special theme for this year,” the CSCC president said.

 

The Community First Awards have, for the first four years, been presented in the spring, but in 2020, the pandemic changed that.

 

“We knew we had to back it up so we rescheduled it for September,” Seymour said. “Of course, we thought that this pandemic thing might be over by then, and when it wasn’t, instead of trying to do the face-to-face event, we did it online. Obviously, it wasn’t the same as having people together to celebrate that, although I think we did a pretty good job as far as an online celebration would go.”

 

The Community First Awards event wasn’t the only change made in 2020, as an event that featured former NFL star Archie Manning was postponed also.

 

“We had scheduled the Archie Manning event, and we had to back that up twice, and we still have him coming back next February or March,” Seymour said. “So, our plan is we want to do a big event in the fall, and a big event in the spring, so we're just going to keep it going that way.”

 

That means this fall’s big event will be the Community First Awards ceremony.

 

As the college began preparing for the September event, a thought came to mind. Since the pandemic had not only changed the school’s plans, but many in the community, and everyone had to deal with it in some fashion, why not honor those who persisted through the year and even helped others do so?

 

“Okay, so as we thought about getting ready for the sixth annual Community First, it really made sense to me to tie the theme to the pandemic this year, trying to recognize people who did amazing things,” Seymour stated.

 

Each of the nine categories will be presented to those “who did amazing things” during the pandemic. The categories are: Arts, Business, Education, Public Service, Volunteer Service, Nonprofit Leadership, Healthcare, Student Leadership and Philanthropy.

 

In the past, previous nominations were considered, but this year, with the special theme, nominations from prior years will not be considered. Only new nominations will be reviewed by the Selection Committee.

 

“So, as you know we've got nine different categories, but there's one — healthcare —  that should be easy, either a nurse or a doctor or somebody else in healthcare,” the college president said. “But there are others that could have some interesting nominees. Take for example student leadership. You know, it could be a third-grader, there could be a college student, it could be any age. And so we encourage people to think about students who may have taken on a special project or did something special during the pandemic.”

 

Seymour said he would like to see multiple nominations be submitted in all the categories, and stressed it doesn’t have to be someone that is well-known, but someone who has done something special.

 

“It could be somebody you work for, or it could be a family member, or it could be somebody in your church. You know, it really could be anybody in the five counties that we serve,” he said. “That's what I think is special about Community First; it is that, as far as I know, it's the only award program that is for anybody within these five counties.”

 

Cleveland State Community College serves Bradley, Polk, McMinn, Meigs and Monroe counties.

 

“But I want to stress that these are not the Cleveland State Community First awards. These are the Community First Awards presented by Cleveland State,” Seymour emphasized. “We want everyone to participate. The first word in the awards is community.”

 

Nomination forms are available online at www.clevelandstatecc.edu.

 

Although the winners of each category will be announced prior to the event, the college will keep the name of its most prestigious award, the Community First Person of the Year, a surprise until the night of the event. 

 


Anyone living in Cleveland State’s five-county service area is eligible to receive a Community First Award. For more information, contact Cindy Dawson at 423-614-8700 or email her at cdawson@clevelandstatecc.edu.