Education graduate one of five recipients of the 2015 Distinguished Alumni Awards

The recipients of the 2015 annual University of Manitoba Distinguished Alumni Awards have been selected and the honorees encompass a wide range of achievement, success and community service.

The Distinguished Alumni Awards recognize graduates who have achieved outstanding accomplishments in their professional and personal lives, and who have been an inspiration to other alumni, current students and the community, both close to home and around the globe.

Wayne Davies, BEd/91, PB DipEd/07

One of the five winners this year was Wayne Davies, who first graduated from the Faculty of Education in 1991. (BEd/91, PB DipEd/07) and was this year’s Community Service award recipient.

Longtime educator Davies gave awesome opportunities to junior high students: building custom guitars; recruiting rock stars, professional athletes, even former U.S. presidents to autograph them; then auctioning them off to support local charities. In 2010, a group of teachers at the École Selkirk Junior High School in Selkirk, Man., helped then-principal Davies turn this rock ’n’ roll fantasy into reality with the founding of the Building on Students Success (B.O.S.S.) Guitar Works Program. Three short years later, in 2013, B.O.S.S. participants had built 325 fully playable guitars and raised more than $100,000 for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights as well as an additional $40,000 for various other charities.

The awards will be handed out on May 12 at the Distinguished Alumni Awards Celebration of Excellence.

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