Several women from UVa-Wise drove hundreds of miles to Memphis just to slip, slide, stride and just plain roll around in the mud, but it was all for a good cause.

The women, Erin Clem, Carlee Reiber, Brittanie Jones, Sarah Smith and Nichole Davis and Sydney Pack, participated in the Go Dirty Girl 5K Mud Run, a female only run for ladies of all ages and athletic abilities.

The Graduate Medical Education Consortium and Area Health Education Center of Southwest Virginia received three grants designed to improve health care in the region.

GMEC/AHEC garnered a grant to hold an educational event in Geriatric Medicine for rural practitioners. The event took place at the Appalachian Agency on Aging in Buchanan County on March 8.

Gov. Bob McDonnell has proclaimed March 12 as Tornado Preparedness Day.

UVa-Wise will participate in the statewide drill. While students and faculty will be on spring break, we encourage everyone to take a moment this week to visit the college website for information on what to do during a tornado. The link is http://www.uvawise.edu/emergency/emergencyprocedures

Professor Amy Clark will lecture on "Talking Appalachian: Pride and Prejudice and Mountain Speech," on Wednesday, Feb. 27 at 1 p.m. in the Chapel of All Faiths.

The presentation, which is free and open to the public, is part of a UVa-Wise Lecture Committee's Special Series on Faculty Writing & Research. During the next two months, UVa-Wise will host lectures from members of its faculty who have been making new and original contributions to their fields of study.