The Jenco Foundation and the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio recognized seven Appalachian Ohio residents as 2026 Jenco Award recipients at an Oct. 8 ceremony held at the Tecumseh Theater. Athens County resident Sarah Adkins was among those honored.
Adkins, a Southeast Ohio native and pharmacist, launched Rising Suns Non-Profit Pharmacy in 2021. The nonprofit supplies free, life-sustaining medications to uninsured and underinsured residents in Athens, Hocking, Meigs, Morgan, Perry, Vinton and Washington counties. Organizers said the pharmacy has served more than 1,000 patients during five years of operation and produced more than $8 million in medication savings, with grants, donations and volunteers covering nearly all of its work.
According to the announcement, this year's ceremony marked two milestones: 15 years of cooperation between the Jenco Foundation and FAO, and more than 100 Appalachian Ohioans recognized through the program overall. Jenco Foundation committee member Michelle Shively MacIver said the recipients' service represents thousands of acts of kindness, courage and selflessness, and that their individual stories demonstrate that anyone can improve life for others.
The awards are named for Father Lawrence Martin Jenco, a Roman Catholic priest abducted in Lebanon in 1985 while serving as director of Catholic Relief Services there; he was held 19 months. Journalist Terry Anderson, a fellow detainee, created the foundation in 2001 and died in 2024. Father Jenco died in 1996. The foundation joined FAO as an endowment in 2011, and the awards have been presented since 2002.
Other 2026 recipients include Lisa Carroll of Gallia County, founder of God's Hands At Work; Perry County Judge Luann Cooperrider; Stephanie Laube of Guernsey County, co-founder of the Samaritan Center of Guernsey County; and Sandra Landis, Skip Ricketts and John Winnenberg, credited with restoring the Tecumseh Theater, which reopened in June 2026.