Just a little reminder that Monday is the deadline for nominations ...

-----Original Message----- From: Mike Rhoads Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2011 10:17 AM To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: SAS-L award nominations -- it's that time again!

Well, if it's January, it must be time for New Year's resolutions, major snowstorms in much of the United States ... and soliciting nominations for the annual SAS-L awards!

Thanks to Larry Hoyle, you can now make your award nominations: http://ires.ku.edu/~ipsr/SGF2011/saslbof.htm

The deadline for nominations is January 31. Voting will then take place from February 1-14.

As usual, the awards will be presented at our meetup during SAS Global Forum (details TBA).

Please include a short testimonial for your nominee (you will have the choice of remaining anonymous if you desire). A description of each award is provided later in this message. If someone else beat you to the punch by nominating your favorite candidate, you may still add your own words of praise. These testimonials will be made available on the web site once the voting period starts.

Now for the award details ...

"Most Valuable SAS-Ler" (MVS)

Nominees should be people whom you feel have contributed most significantly OVER THE LAST YEAR to this list. Certainly there are MANY MANY MANY people who are very valuable contributors to the list, but only the most outstanding will qualify for MVS. This year we will be recognizing one or more winners, depending on the distribution of votes, and a scad of runners-up. What's a scad? Easy. All nominees make up the scad, and will be duly recognized.

Note that current members of the SAS-L Hall of Fame (David Cassell, Peter Crawford, data _null_, Richard DeVenezia, Paul Dorfman, Toby Dunn, Ron Fehd, Dale McLerran, Howard Schreier, Ian Whitlock) are not eligible for nomination as the MVS, in order to recognize some different people each year. If any former MVS winners also finish among the top vote-getters this year, they will be inducted into the (drum roll please) SAS-L Hall of Fame.

"SAS-L Rookie of the Year" (SASLROY)

SAS-L Rookie of the Year, or SASLROY ("SAS El Roy") nominations are for a person you recognize as making a significant contribution to discussion on SAS-L who is new to SAS-L. This may have been by asking a thought provoking "newbie" question, starting a thread by providing a partial or "not exactly right" answer, or answering in a way that made us take a second look at how we approach problem solving in SAS. Someone who got us all straining those little grey cells to come up with a more "exactly right" answer. Sometimes these folks get us thinking just by asking "why not?"

Let the nominations begin!

Mike Rhoads RhoadsM1@Westat.com