UNCG will give Patricia S. Rothrock and Ellen Strawbridge Yarborough the 2005 Alumni Distinguished Service Awards in recognition of the alumnae’s service to regional and international communities.

The awards will be presented at the 112th meeting of the UNCG Alumni Association 12:30 p.m. May 14 in Cone Ballroom, Elliott University Center. The awards recognize alumni who have contributed to the “liberal arts ideal” of UNCG through service, the university’s motto.

After graduating with a degree in English from Woman’s College in 1945, Pat Rothrock set out to work in some of the world’s far-reaching countries as a teacher and social worker. After a stint doing work in rural Kentucky and receiving a master’s degree from Scarritt College in Nashville, Tenn., Rothrock traveled to Lumbashi in the Republic of Congo to work with women and youth. While there, she became fluent in Swahili and French. When hostilities broke out in the country, she traveled to Rhodesia, where she taught English and Bible school. Upon her return to the Congo, she became a professor of Christian education at the School of Theology in Mulumqwishi. In the 1960s, she worked for the Methodist Board of Missions and then the Office of Ministry to Women of the World Division of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries. After her retirement, she served as a volunteer lay pastor of the Protestant Church of Algeria in the summer of 1990 and volunteered in the China program of the world division of her church.

Ellen Yarborough graduated from Woman’s College in 1955 with a degree in physical education and went on to receive master’s degrees from Wake Forest University in 1978 and the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in England in 1980 and a Ph.D. in Family Relations and Child Development from UNCG in 1983. After beginning her career at the YWCA in High Point and Winston-Salem, she worked in mediation, counseling and health education with Forsyth-Stokes Mental Health Department, the Children’s Home, the March of Dimes, and Trinity Center Inc. Ordained in 1997 by the United Methodist Church, she serves at Green Street Church, a re-visioning congregation whose witness and outreach reflect the diversity and address the needs of its multiethnic community.