A woman who changed lives while traveling around the world and a man who continues to make his mark in his hometown are this year's recipients of Lebanon School District's Distinguished Alumni Award.

Ruth Anne Brown Zimmerman of the Cedars' Class of 1947 and Dennis Shalters of the Class of 1962 were honored at Lebanon High School Friday along with 11 classroom volunteers, as the district wrapped up its American Education Week celebration with its annual Friends of Education luncheon.

Zimmerman, who lives near Denver, Co., and Shalters, who lives in Lebanon, where selected for the award by the Cedar Foundation Board of Directors.

A former Miss Greater Lebanon of 1947, Zimmerman, 85, is a 1951 graduate of Lebanon Valley College who attended on a full scholarship and earned pre-med degree. After two-years of post-graduate stuidies in New Jersey she earned accreditation as a registered medical technologist.

But it was Zimmerman's vocal talent and her strong Christian faith that shaped her life and early-career. She and her late husband, N. William Zimmerman, who was a renowned orchestral and choral conductor, served as educational Methodist missionaries teaching in Southeast Asia from 1954 to 1987. Zimmerman attended Westminster Choir College in Princeton and became an adjunct professor, as well as performing as a professional soprano in the Colorado Symphony Chorus for 19 years.

Zimmerman, who speaks fluent Chinese, was requested by Singapore's Ministry of Education to give demonstrations in the Orff-Kodaly Method of music instruction to the country's educators, who eventually adopted it as their elementary school music curriculum.

After her career as a missionary, Zimmerman put her medical skills to work at the University of Oklahoma for several years and then for 13 years at the Denver VA Hospital. In 2006, she was named the VA hospitals "Volunteer of the Year."

"I am humbled by this award, Zimmerman said. "And I'm so excited I don't think I will get any sleep tonight."

Zimmerman is the third member of the Class of 1947 to be honored as Distinguished Almni, Robert Bowman Sr. and George Feeman are the others.

"Weren't we something", she joked.

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Lebanon School District honors pair of distinguished alums