JEFFERSON CITY – Missouri may be known as the “Show Me State”, but the award ceremony at the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR) Roundtable, held on Jan. 23-25, revealed that Missouri Disaster Relief (MODR) volunteers are better known for showing compassion than skepticism. During the awards banquet, which was held during the annual event, not one, but two MODR volunteers were recognized with the Distinguished Service Award for exceptional service.
The first was a memorial to the late Artie Horn from Kearney, Mo., who unfortunately passed away on Aug. 31, 2022. As a long-time MODR volunteer who was involved in all facets of DR, Artie was posthumously recognized with a plaque that was presented to his widow, Connie, and their three sons, Artie Jr., Bradley and Timothy, in his honor.
The second award went to Tom Malott, a MODR volunteer from Doniphan, Mo., who served as the construction coordinator on two newly constructed homes in the Hayti, Mo., community. Malott, with help from a long list of volunteers, spent more than eight months building the two houses from the ground up following an EF4 tornado that hit the area on Dec. 10, 2021.
According to MODR Director, Gaylon Moss, more than 100 SBDR leaders and volunteers from across the U.S. attended the Roundtable, which was held at the Ogletown Baptist Church in Newark, Del. In addition to Moss, Malott and Connie Horn and her sons, volunteers from Missouri included Gary Pool, Eddie Barnhill and Aaron Werner.
“The Distinguished Service Award is like an All-Star award for a specific performance during a disaster and is based on the most recent year of responses,” Gaylon Moss explained. “Individuals nominated are selected for having gone above and beyond the call of duty and having distinguished themselves during an actual response or series of responses during the most recent year. Up to six Distinguished Service Awards are presented each year. So Missouri is honored to have had two of the six recognized.”
Connie Horn commented that she was fortunate to find out about the award in early January, which gave her sons a chance to arrange travel, as well.
“Naturally, all three of them said they wanted to attend the event and be there for the presentation,” she related. “We were extremely happy and humbled to see Artie honored in this way. I know if Artie were alive, he would have been embarrassed by the recognition because he wouldn’t have felt like he deserved it.
“It was a wonderful experience,” she added, “and one of the most touching parts of the evening was visiting with people who had worked with Artie and talking to people who didn’t know him but wanted to hear more about him.”
Tom Malott, on the other hand, didn’t know anything about the award until they called his name at the award ceremony.
“You can’t trust Eddie Barnhill or my wife,” he joked. “Eddie claimed I needed to go to the Roundtable for the training and then he got my wife to insist I go, since Eddie had asked.
“Being there with Artie’s family was as much as an honor as the award,” he continued. “And it’s an honor for Missouri. As far as I know, this is the first time a MODR team has built a house from the foundation. Yet there are teams all over the country that are doing renovations, which are just as important to the families.
“I’ve told everyone that it may be my name on the plaque, just because they needed to list somebody’s name, but this is OUR award, and it is in honor of the hundreds of people who volunteered their time and money to build the two houses.”
According to Moss, this isn’t the first year Missouri has been honored at the award ceremony. The SBDR steering committee has graciously awarded MODR volunteers for service in 2018, 2019 and 2021, as well.
In the meantime, the 2025 SBDR Roundtable has already been scheduled for Jan. 27-31 in San Antonio, Texas.