This year’s Distinguished Alumni and Gold Nuggets will be the last selected for the next two years.

Next year, in honor of the university’s centennial, the Alumni Association and the university will host a reunion of all past nominees. The traditional awarding of Distinguished Alumni and Gold Nugget awards will commence in 2015.

“This will be a tribute to all of them and to the university,” said Richard Daniel, executive director for alumni relations. “It is a way to introduce all of them to each other and bring this collective success of individuals to campus to celebrate them and also for them to have a chance to celebrate our centennial and to meet with our students.”

Daniel said that he looks forward to the coming centennial year and the reunion of past Distinguished Alumni and Gold Nuggets. This year, the four distinguished alumni—who are selected by the university based on their accomplishments—are Sally Hurt Deitch, CEO of Sierra Providence East Medical Center, Kathy Patrick, a litigation attorney for Gibbs and Burns Law firm, Gary Wagner, Ameron International Corporation, and Robert Wingo, CEO of Sanders and Wingo Marketing.

“It is quite a diversified group of individuals that are distinguished alumni, but the breadth and depth of our alumni and the achievements that they have accomplished are tremendous,” he said. “We have the largest group of Distinguished Alumni and Gold Nuggets together that we have ever recognized before.”

Gold Nugget awards are given from each college to alumni who have excelled in their respective field. This year, 18 individuals have been awarded this honor.

Daniel said the alumni are prime examples of successful UTEP graduates.

“We have such tremendous alumni across this country and we are trying to recognize as many of them as possible when we can,” Daniel said. “The Distinguished Alumni and Gold Nuggets are those opportunities where we can pay tribute to the collective success and achievements of our alumni.”

For more information on this year’s award recipients, visit alumni.utep.edu/awards.

Amanda Guillen may be reached at [email protected].