Friends of the Festival won nine awards for the 2009 Riverbend Festival at the International Festival and Events Association's annual convention in Indianapolis.

The IFEA is made up of more than 2,400 festivals from around the world. Riverbend competed with renowned events such as the Indy 500 Festival, Portland Rose Festival, Fiesta San Antonio, Kentucky Derby, and the Pasadena Tournament of Roses and Disney.

Riverbend Festival won awards in the following categories: Television program, Photography, Environmental program, Clothing, Printed materials, Street banner, Best sponsor and Merchandising.

Seven GPS seniors lauded

Four members of the GPS senior class have been named Commended Students in the 2010 National Merit Scholarship Program, and three National Achievement Outstanding Participants were also recognized.

National Merit Commended Students are Sarah Davis, Jami Haskins, Catherine Hitchings and Carolyn Pearigen. Letters of commendation were presented to Norquata Allen, Tory Lewis, Jasmine Mason as National Achievement "Outstanding Participants."

The Commended Students placed among the top 5 percent of more than 1.5 million students who took the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The National Achievement Program recognizes high scores among black high school students on that test.

Clark is Virginia College president

Virginia College School of Business and Health in Chattanooga has named Jack Clark campus president.

Mr. Clark brings more than 25 years of leadership experience in the healthcare industry to the job, most recently Alere. He started his career working with Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola USA and Campbell Soup Co. in sales and marketing leadership roles.

Parkridge named Swafford to board

Dr. Cynthia Swafford has been named to the board of governors of Parkridge Medical Center Inc.

Dr. Swafford serves as director of the nursing program at Chattanooga State Technical Community College.

Other members of the board include Warren McEwen, Curtis Adams, Dr. John Adams, Dr. Vijaya Appareddy, Dr. Eugene Ryan, Allison Cardwell, Dr. Siobhan Duff, Darrell Moore, Dr. Yune-Gill Jeong, Dr. Susan McGuire, Dr. Theodore Richards and Dr. Andrew Rittenberry.