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Local scientific group draws national award
By Elise Franco
Youngstown
A surprise awaited members of the Penn-Ohio Border Section of the American Chemical Society during a 60th anniversary dinner.
About 40 guests gathered Friday evening at Overture expecting to celebrate the section’s anniversary with dinner and a few guest speakers. What no one expected, said section counselor Doris Zimmerman, was to be surprised with a National Outstanding Performance Award.
“I had a feeling they were all going to be extremely surprised,” Zimmerman said. “I think they’ll look at this and say, ‘We finally got it.’”
Zimmerman said the award was presented Aug. 24 at the 12th Annual ChemLuminary Awards in Boston, and she was overcome with emotion as the section was announced as the winner.
The ACS is the largest scientific organization in the world made up mostly of chemists, chemical engineers, chemistry teachers and other professionals who work in chemistry-related jobs, according to the 2010 ACS newspaper.
Nationwide, ACS has 161,000 members — 198 members are in the Penn-Ohio Border Section, which encompasses Mahoning, Columbiana, Trumbull, Mercer and Lawrence counties.
A brochure outlining the section’s accomplishments was read during the awards ceremony, and Zimmerman said the tears began flowing after a regional meeting symposium was mentioned.
“That symposium was the idea of Dr. Mildred Perry from the Pittsburgh section,” Zimmerman said. “She died two months prior to the [awards ceremony,] so she wasn’t able to be there.”
Bill Carroll, former president of the national section of ACS and guest speaker at Friday’s dinner, said he was at the national awards ceremony as well.
“It’s kind of like the Oscars,” he said. “I was in the audience cheering them on.”
Carroll presented the award to the unsuspecting crowd Friday before giving a presentation based on articles written by Chemical and Engineering News columnist Ken Reese.
He called the presentation “Reese’s Pieces.”
“He wrote the column called ‘Newscripts’ for 37 years and had a wonderful sense of humor — very dry and slightly dirty,” Carroll said. “Essentially my presentation is a combination of some of his best columns. This isn’t deep science. It’s just for fun.”
Zimmerman said it wasn’t as difficult as she expected to keep the award a secret.