Tomah VA Medical Center

Veteran Walter Knox and Tomah VA Leadership Development team member Audrey Zum Brunnen discuss the mural.

The 2011 VHA Communication Awards were announced on Monday, July 11.  The Tomah VA received two awards this year.

Leadership Category—New Communicator of the Year Award—James Theres

(There were two award winners this year.  The other was Gary Kunich from the Milwaukee VA.  This is the second year in a row that VISN 12 has won this award.  Last year was Jonathon Friedman from Lovell FHCC in North Chicago.)

James Theres has served as the Public Affairs Officer at the Tomah VA Medical Center since February 2009.  Over the past 27 months, he:

• Enthusiastically accepted the role as the VISN 12 Web Content Manager;
• Led the local Public Affairs efforts for a national event (2010 National Veterans Creative Arts Festival);
• Served as a Treating Veterans with CARE trainer and completed the Master Train the Trainer program;
• Successfully completed the PAO Mentoring course;
• Graduated from the Tomah VA Leadership Development Course, a 16 week program based on the principles of servant leadership;
• Won three VHA Communication Awards
  • 2010 Pinnacle in Speech Writing
  • 2010 Ace in Speech Writing
  • 2009 Honor in Feature Writing
• Led the effort to provide a successful community-wide Open House; the first in the 63 year history of the Tomah VA Medical Center and;
• Served on the national public affairs team for the 2011 and 2010 National Veterans Wheelchair Games in Pittsburgh, PA and Denver, CO.     

History Category—Ace Award (2^nd Place)—The Tomah VA Mural Project

(Leadership Development Team Members:  Shai Sims Brown, Audrey Zum Brunnen, Barb Steele, Patricia Elliott, James Theres, Deena Olson and Judy Clay.)

In 2010, a Tomah VA Leadership Development Team (LDP) in the Servant Leadership Program in association with Viterbo University chose for their project to create a mural depicting the history of the Tomah VA campus from 1891-2010 and beyond.  The mural is painted on six signboards and will be placed along a 26’stretch of hallway in BLDG. 402 between the Veterans Fitness Gym and the new $1.6 million dollar Ability Gym, a state of the art rehabilitation facility.  The six mural panels are:

• 1891-1933       Indian School and Ho-Chunk Nation
• 1941-45           Army/Air Force Radio School and World War II
• 1946-1959       Tomah VA Opens
• 1960-1989       A Future President Visits (Senator John F. Kennedy visited in 1960, we have a photo of him standing in the canteen.)
• 1990-2009       50 Years of Tomah VA (50^th Anniversary was in 1997.)
•  2010               2010 and beyond       

Because of the Tomah VA’s historic connection to the Ho-Chunk Indian Nation, the LDP team coordinated with Robert Mann, the Ho-Chunk Nation Veterans Service Officer, to find Ho-Chunk artists willing to depict Indian history on the first signboard.  The other five signboards are being drawn by a local Veteran/artist Walter Knox.  Each of the five LDP team members provided content for their section of the mural.  Another unique feature of the project is all of the painting will be done by Veterans, employees and volunteers under the supervision of Mr. Knox.  We hope this will create a long lasting sense of stewardship.  The project was conceived in December 2010 and is on-going with an expected completion/unveiling in Fall 2011.