The winners of the 2013 Sgt. Maj. Larry L. Strickland Educational Leadership Award and the Sgt. Maj. Dawn Kilpatrick Memorial AUSA Scholarship Award were honored at The Sergeant Major of the Army Noncommissioned Officer and Soldier Forum held during the Association of the United States Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition.Receiving the Strickland Award were Sgt. 1st Class Rodney Harris, 1st Battalion 310th Infantry, Fort McCoy, Wis., and Sgt. Maj. Ronald E. Johnson, United States Army Garrison, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.The Strickland Award is presented annually to noncommissioned officers who, according to Sgt. Maj. of the Army Ken Preston, USA, Ret., "exemplify the Army’s vision and mobilize others in shaping our future leaders while practicing excellent stewardship of the nation’s most precious resource: our soldiers."The award is named in honor of Sgt. Maj. Larry L. Strickland, a victim of the Sept.11, 2001 terrorist attack on the Pentagon.Preston, AUSA’s director of noncommissioned officer and soldier programs, described Strickland a noncommissioned officer who "cared deeply about soldiers and their professional development."Receiving the Sgt. Maj. Dawn Kilpatrick Memorial AUSA Scholarship Award was Master Sgt. Adam V. Shaw, who currently serves at the Defense Media Activity Joint Assignment Desk at Fort Meade, Md."It’s a great honor to receive this award, especially considering the namesake of Sgt. Maj. Kilpatrick and what she meant to the career field," Shaw said.Adding, "I’m proud to be in a long line of awardees. A lot of great NCOs have won this award before me."The United States Army Office of the Chief of Public Affairs and AUSA established the Kilpatrick Scholarship in honor of Kilpatrick’s 20 years of service to the U.S. Army, which included time as an editor of three Army newspapers, as a master parachutist with the Golden Knights and as the first noncommissioned officer to serve as the personal public affairs officer for the secretary of the Army.