By: Gina Glover, MS, CCC-SLP, Honors and Awards Committee Chair

The Honors and Awards of the Association are intended to identify and recognize those members whose contributions to the Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association (TSHA) have been significant, outstanding, and excellent.

TSHA celebrates volunteers, supporters, and amazing speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and audiologists each year. Now is the time to start thinking about your nominees for these awards.

Let’s highlight just a few. The Rising Star Award is new and honors a first-time volunteer or committee or task force member for outstanding work. The Executive Council Member of the Year recognizes any TSHA Executive Council member and/or TSHA liaison for outstanding work in the areas of task accomplishments, leadership qualities, and engaging their committee or task force chairs and members. We continue to honor those volunteers who have served TSHA in various leadership roles through the Award of Honors and the Hall of Fame Award. We also will continue to acknowledge those who have served TSHA as well as the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) for 10 years or more with the Jack L. Bangs Award. Other awards are the Special Commendation Award, the Public Service Award, and the TSHA Advocacy Award/Advocator of the Year. Additional information about all of the honors and awards can be found on the TSHA website at https://www.txsha.org/About/TSHA-Honors-and-Awards. 

Nominations will open soon, and nomination applications will be available on the website. This year, nominations will close in January 2025, since the TSHA 2025 Convention will be held much later in the spring. That will give everyone a lot more time after the holidays to get their nominations submitted. We look forward to announcing and honoring the winners at the TSHA 2025 Convention!

Take a look around you and notice the work of TSHA members and volunteers. There are many who deserve to be recognized for their contributions, so get your nominations ready!