Tom Herron, left, won the New Horizon Educator of the Year” award from the Tennessee EMS Education Association. Herron was nominated by Paramedic Program Director David Blevins, right.
Aug. 10, 2017
By Bob Fowler
Roane State staff writer
Tom Herron has made a big impact in a relatively brief time at Roane State Community College.
Herron, clinical coordinator and associate professor of Roane State’s EMS program, has won the prestigious “New Horizon Educator of the Year” award.
The honor from the Tennessee EMS Education Association was announced during the group’s annual membership meeting and awards banquet last month in Murfreesboro.
The award recognizes emergency medical services educators for their creative teaching methods, their service to their community and their use of innovative classroom presentation skills.
Herron joined the Roane State staff in April 2015, and since then, “EMS education has not been the same,” Roane State Paramedic Program Director David S. Blevins wrote in his nomination of Herron.
“Tom’s out-of-the-box teaching ideas have thoroughly opened the eyes of responders and have engaged them at a level that few instructors ever attain,” Blevins wrote.
Herron, with more than 30 years in the Emergency Medical Services profession, has developed a knack for creating realistic scenarios, the nomination states.
In one instance, students were confronted with a simulation in the parking lot of Roane State’s Knox County campus where a victim had been dragged underneath a car. “The realism of this scenario was so high that workers from a nearby building were checking on the situation and preparing to call 911,” Blevins wrote.
Herron has been dubbed a “maestro of makeup” when it comes to creating realistic mock injuries, and those simulations translate into a “high level of academic achievement” for Roane State EMS students, who consistently score among the highest in the state, Blevins said.
As the college’s clinical coordinator, Herron has contact with leaders in eight hospitals and 14 emergency medical service agencies and fire departments in the area, and he’s developed an invaluable rapport with them, according to the nomination. Herron has also served as a textbook reviewer and advisor for several EMS-related textbooks.
“Tom has a passion for this profession, and for the development of the next generation of pre-hospital emergency care providers,” according to Blevins’ nomination, which calls Herron a leader in the classroom, in clinical development and in the community.
To learn more about Roane State’s EMT and paramedic programs, contact David Blevins at (865) 354-3000 ext. 4768 or blevinsds@roanestate.edu.
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