Special to The Post-Searchlight    

At a ceremony held Jan. 23, Bainbridge College (BC) recognized outstanding achievement in technical education by announcing the winners of the Rick Perkins award, which honors a technical college faculty member and the Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership (GOAL) award, which recognizes an outstanding technical education student.

Misty Joiner of Edison, Ga., a computer systems instructor at the Bainbridge College Early County campus, was the named as winner of the Rick Perkins Award. Also nominated was Barry Reynolds, who works at BC’s main campus as a computer systems instructor.

The Rick Perkins Award for Excellence in Instruction honors technical education’s most outstanding instructors. The award has been an on-going statewide event since 1991 and is designed to recognize technical college instructors who make significant contributions to technical education through innovation and leadership in their respective fields.

Instructors at Bainbridge College nominated eight of their students for the GOAL competition, according to Sheila McLendon, coordinator for the college’s GOAL program. Of the eight nominees, three chose to compete in the local competition.

This year’s GOAL winner, Michael Middleton of Dothan, Ala., is majoring in Electrical Construction and Maintenance at BCEC. He was nominated by Claude Bell, Assistant Professor of Electronics Technology.

Other GOAL nominees who entered the competition are James Strickland, of Blakely, Ga., who attends Bainbridge College Early County campus and is an Electrical Construction and Maintenance student. He was nominated by Gail Lovering, part-time instructor of Administrative Office Technology.

Also nominated was Mackenzie Burgess of Bainbridge, who is majoring in Business Administration and attends classes at the Bainbridge campus. She was nominated by Tatyana Pashnyak, Associate Professor of Business and Medical Office Technology.

“The purpose of the GOAL program is to spotlight the outstanding achievement by students in Georgia’s technical colleges and to emphasize the importance of technical education in today’s global workforce,” McLendon said.

The first phase of GOAL takes place at the local college level, where a selection committee panel of leaders from local business and industry in the community review each of the instructors’ nominations and then conduct personal interviews with the students. The panel considers the students’ qualities, including academic achievement, personal character, leadership abilities and enthusiasm for technical education. Georgia’s GOAL program is the first of its kind in the nation.

The GOAL and Perkins winners will complete in the regional competition being held this month in Tifton. The state competition will be held in April in Atlanta, Ga., where a panel of leaders from the business, industry and government sectors will interview them and choose one to be the state’s 2013 GOAL winner and the recipient of the GOAL Medallion. The grand prize includes a new car.

The Perkins state award winner will serve as an ambassador for technical education in Georgia.