Barbara Hikel Retiree Award
Purpose: This annual award was established in 2006 in memory and recognition of Barbara Hikel, an exemplary UMaine employee who stayed involved with the university for many years after her retirement. The award is presented to a University of Maine retiree who provides extraordinary voluntary service to our university. Retirees contribute to our community in many ways, and the Barbara Hikel Award provides meaningful recognition of those efforts.
Selection Criteria: The recipient of the Barbara Hikel Award must be a University of Maine retiree with at least ten years of university service and age 55 or older. Typically, those eligible for the award have been retired from the university for at least three years before their nomination.
Members of the UM Retiree Council will assist the President of the University of Maine in evaluating nominations and recommendations from the council. Please consider nominating a retiree you know who continues to contribute and provide their service to the University of Maine.
Call for Nominations for 2025
We invite your nominations for the 2025 Barbara Hikel Retiree Award. Thank you for your consideration and for continuing this tradition of recognizing members of our community and their influential contributions to our university.
Deadline for nominations for the 2025 award is December 13, 2024.
Please mail your nomination to the Barbara Hikel Award Committee, c/o the University of Maine Foundation, Two Alumni Place, Orono, ME 04469-5792, or e-mail your nomination to sarahm@maine.edu.
Past Award Recipients
2023: Mike Eckardt
2022: Karen Boucias
2021: Linwood “Woody” Carville; Marisue and John Pickering (jointly)
2020: None due to COVID
2019: Judy Round
2018: Jim McCleave
2017: Phil Locke
2016: Marian Dressler
2015: Glenn Wilde
2014: Charles Scontras
2013: George Jacobson
2012: Charles Kittridge
2011: Nancy MacKnight
2010: Hans “Mike” Opitz
2009: Hank Metcalf
2008: Katherine Musgrave
2007: Harold “Brownie” Brown
2006: Barbara Hikel (posthumous)