Three Stanford staffers win 2015 Amy J. Blue Awards

Amy J. Blue is remembered every year by awards in her memory given to outstanding Stanford staff members. (Image credit: Stanford News Service)

Now in their 25th year, the Amy J. Blue Awards honor staff members who are exceptionally dedicated, supportive of colleagues and passionate about their work.

This year’s honorees are Priscilla J. Fiden, assistant dean of administrative operations in the Graduate School of Education; Kahlil Wells, senior manager, Lakeside Dining, a student dining hall in Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE) Stanford Dining; and Leslie Winick, director of alumni and student class outreach at the Stanford Alumni Association.

President John Hennessy is scheduled to present each recipient with an Amy J. Blue Award at a May 13 ceremony in the Koret-Taube Conference Center at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, which is located at 366 Galvez Street.

The ceremony, which is open to families, friends and colleagues of the recipients, is scheduled for 4 p.m. Refreshments will be served.

Profiles of the winners will appear in Stanford Report the week before the ceremony.

The Amy J. Blue Award includes a $4,000 prize.

The awards were established in 1991 to honor the life and work of Amy J. Blue, an associate vice president for administrative services and facilities who died of brain cancer in May 1988, about a month before her 45th birthday.

Stanford created a garden in her name, a small oasis of flowering trees and shrubs now located near Memorial Church. It has four wooden benches, including one that rocks, and a sundial with an engraved motto: “Count only happy hours.”

Blue was known as a whirlwind of a woman who propelled excitement, intensity and novelty into every undertaking. She also was known as an extraordinary leader – a woman of incisive intelligence, abundant energy and unrelenting honesty.