Marshall University honors alumni Dr. Lonnie Thompson and Ellen Mosley-Thompson
For HNN by YUTA USUDA

Marshall University honored alumni Dr. Lonnie G. Thompson and Dr. Ellen Mosley-Thompson in the President’s Celebrity Series on Mar. 7 by presenting the John Marshall Medal for Civic Responsibility.

As a symbol of the civic responsibility John Marshall showed through his lifetime, the medal is one of the most cherished awards presented by Marshall University, according to its university communications office.

Lonnie Thompson is a senior research scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center. He has completed more than 40 expeditions to recover climatic records in ice cores from the polar regions to the equator.

The Time magazine and CNN selected Thompson as one of “America’s Best in Science and Medicine” in 2001.

Born in Huntington, Thompson holds a bachelor’s degree in geology from Marshall and a master’s and doctorate degree in geology from the Ohio State University.

“I think there are so many gifted people living in West Virginia,” Thompson said. “We will make a difference in West Virginia. It’s the education of these people giving them
opportunities. They are the ones who make the difference as we go on to the future. I think most people want to do something meaning for their life. Education is a way to find that.”

Thompson often joined Boy Scout’s activities in his childhood, he said.

“I think that you need to build both more character and but also physical character,” Thompson said. “How much can you do, how much can you stress yourself and still perform. You learn that by doing. West Virginia and growing up in the mountains really allow you to do that.”

Mosley-Thompson has conducted ice core drilling programs in Antarctica and Greenland, and she also has reconstructed paleoenvironmental conditions from the chemical and physical properties in ice cores from Antarctica, Greenland, China and Peru.

Mosley-Thompson is currently working for the Program Arctic Regional Climate Assessment, funded by the NASA and the National Science Foundation.

“I’m very proud of being a West Virginian,” Mosley-Thompson said. “I don’t feel that by living in West Virginia, I missed any opportunities. I was able to achieve everything, more than I ever anticipated that I could achieve.”

Mosley-Thompson said she likes the open space West Virginia has. Being able to see the great environment helped her to build her appreciation of how important it is, she said. “It makes you want to preserve that for the future.”

Thompson and Mosley-Thompson said one of great things about West Virginia is people who are nice.

“I’ve often thought what makes strong or weak really has to do with characters of people and how they live fit in your community,” Thompson said. “When I grew up here, I watch what you could really see was the community spirit… people helping people. I think that is really the fiber that determines the future.”

Before receiving the award in the ceremony in the Francis-Booth Theatre at the Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center, Thompson, who is a faculty member of the Ohio State University, gave a lecture titled “Rapid Climate Change in the Earth System: Past, Present and Future.”

Mosley-Thompson also made a presentation next day in the theatre. The lecture was entitled “Ice Cores: Windows on the Past-Keys to the Future.”

Marshall University added the two names to the prestigious list of 19. The first of them is John Deaver Drinko, who received the medal in April 1994. The university presented the medal to Burl Osborne of the Dallas Morning News in fall 2001 most recently.