Pat Neal of Depoe Bay, Ore., has been awarded the 2011 Hero of the Year Award by the Oregon Office of Rural Health at Oregon Health & Science University.

The award is given annually to an individual who has had a major impact on rural health in Oregon.

“Pat Neal is a wonderful hero,” says Scott Ekblad, director of the Oregon Office of Rural Health at OHSU. “She is currently involved in 10 different health care committees in her community.

From a press release

It’s better to give than receive. That’s how Glenna Woodbury has lived her life.
 
For as long as locals can remember, she and her husband, who own and operate the local Grocery Outlet, have generously given to every cause and every request the community of Florence has encountered. And they were happy to be able to do it.

Now Glenna Woodbury needs to receive.

She has courageously battled colorectal cancer for two years and her last chance--literally-- is a cutting-edge procedure that will kill the tumor that has wrapped itself around the nerves in her spine. A procedure that costs $60,000.

As part of the local effort to raise the necessary funds, Three Rivers Casino & Hotel is donating 100 percent of the proceeds from the World Market Buffet on Sunday, Aug. 7, to the Glenna Woodbury Cancer Fund.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission has named a 141-acre area long the Yachats River the Tami Wagner Wildlife Area, in memory of a highly regarded ODFW employee who died in a car accident near Toledo last year while on her way to the area.

“This means a lot to us because this was more than just a job to her,” said Tami’s husband, Dave Wagne. 

The formerly unnamed area was purchased in the 1970s to provide forage for elk and help alleviate elk damage to surrounding agricultural land.