ATHENS, Ohio — The Southern Wayne Advocacy Council, a Lawrence County group that connects residents with the Wayne National Forest, was named Ohio University’s Community Partner of the Year on Nov. 5, and regional campus partners, faculty and staff took home seven of the evening’s 10 honors, Ohio University announced.
The Community Engagement Awards opened Engage OHIO 2026, the university’s Community and Place-Based Engagement Symposium, at the Ridges Auditorium in Athens, according to Ohio University. Each Ohio University campus honors one Outstanding Community Partner a year, and one is selected as the university-wide Partner of the Year, the university said.
The Southern Wayne Advocacy Council (SWAC) has worked alongside OHIO Southern since May 2023, when the partnership took root through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Recreation Economy for Rural Communities program in Lawrence County, Ohio University said. With the Ironton Rotary Club and more than 50 volunteers, SWAC turned a grassy patch at the end of the Ironton floodwall trail into the Pocket Pollinator Garden and Buddy Bench at Storms Creek Park, a space the university said now serves an estimated 250 to 500 walkers and cyclists each month.
The council has also connected OHIO Southern biology faculty with hundreds of fourth graders at the Wayne National Forest’s Forestry Fair and teamed with the university to bring about 100 Lawrence County high school students into riverfront and forest cleanups, Ohio University said. SWAC board members Judy Dumke and Jill McCleese accepted the award on behalf of Tim Dickens and the council, according to the university.
Other regional honors went across Southeast Ohio and beyond. Captina Conservancy, OHIO Eastern’s partner since 2021 and the primary community partner for its Rural Teacher Corps since spring 2024, was honored for field trips, workshops and volunteer work that included collecting 14 oral histories and co-hosting a hike that brought more than 80 children and family members to Dysart Woods, one of Ohio’s last remaining old-growth forests, Ohio University said. Hopewell Culture National Historical Park and its Friends group were honored for a partnership with OHIO Chillicothe that includes a paid summer internship for a student at the park each year since 2022, according to the university.
Individual honors included OHIO Southern’s Sarah Simmons, who received a Community Engaged Administrator Award, and OHIO Lancaster’s Dr. Pamela Kaylor, who received the Community Engaged Faculty Award, Ohio University said. The Athens campus honored Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio, a partner of the Center for Law, Justice and Culture since 2016, according to the university.
“It inspired me to think about how we tell our story,” Dr. Lewatis McNeal, vice provost for Regional Higher Education, said at the ceremony, in Ohio University’s account. “How do we talk about the wonderful things that are happening in our communities? How do we uplift people?” McNeal said in that account.
The evening closed with a plenary by Joe Brehm and Bryn Sowash, co-CEOs of Rural Action, who described the asset-based approach behind their organization’s work across Appalachian Ohio, Ohio University said. “It’s all about the people,” Sowash said, in the university’s account. The awards kicked off the two-day Engage OHIO symposium, and the partnerships honored — from first-grade reading help in Zanesville to forest cleanups in Lawrence County — continue into the school year ahead.
Photo: Gkuriger, CC BY-SA 4.0