{"id":255290,"date":"2026-04-18T04:50:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T04:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/255290\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T04:50:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T04:50:35","slug":"el-paso-community-college-announces-top-award-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/255290\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso Community College announces top award winners"},"content":{"rendered":"

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM<\/a>) \u2014 As part of Community College Month, El Paso Community College (EPCC) has named the winners of its top awards for the 2025-2026 school year.<\/p>\n

Two earned the President\u2019s Excellence Award this year: Associate Vice President of Workforce and Continuing Education Blayne Primozich, and Director of Purchasing and Contract Management Ruben Gallardo.<\/p>\n

\"Blayne<\/p>\n

Blayne Primozich<\/p>\n

\"Fan<\/p>\n

Fan Chen<\/p>\n

\"Ruben<\/p>\n

Ruben Gallardo<\/p>\n

\u201cI am honored to represent a fantastic team of individuals and their achievements in providing support for our community partners, regional employers, and individuals engaged in life-long learning,\u201d Primozich said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trust and support El Paso Community College has shown me have been key to the success I\u2019ve achieved here,\u201d Gallardo said.<\/p>\n

The Minnie Stevens Piper Professor award is a state-wide award and is the highest honor that can be bestowed on a Faculty Achievement awardee. The Minnie Stevens Piper Professor nominee is submitted into the statewide competition to become one of the 10 annual Minnie Stevens Piper Professors for Texas.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Fan Chen, a mathematics professor, was named this year\u2019s Minnie Stevens Piper Award winner for EPCC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis encourages me to continue improving, such as building better scaffolding for difficult concepts, seeking more opportunities for students to communicate and defend ideas, and mentoring more intentionally and effectively,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n

The following group are the winners that will be honored at this year\u2019s banquet.<\/p>\n

President\u2019s Excellence Award\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Blayne\u00a0J.\u00a0Primozich, Associate Vice President, Workforce and Continuing Education, ASC-B (VP Amaya)<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Ruben C. Gallardo, Director, Purchasing and Contract Management, ASC-A (VP Flores) <\/p>\n

\u00a0EPCC Minnie Stevens Piper Professor Award\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Fan Chen, Professor, Mathematics, VV (Interim Dean Gonzalez)<\/p>\n

\u00a0Outstanding Full-Time Faculty Achievement Award\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Irma Carlos de Ramirez, Assistant Professor, Nursing, RG (Dean Guerrero)<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Sarah N. Martinez, Assistant Professor, Biology, MDP (Dean Pacheco)<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Margaret Nelson Rodriguez, Professor, English, VV (Dean Guerra)<\/p>\n

\u00a0Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Achievement Award\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Edgar Morales, Culinary Arts, ASC (Dean Nickerson)<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Myrna Lozano, Criminal Justice, VV (Dean\u00a0Pagel)<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Ren\u00e9 E.\u00a0Casta\u00f1eda, Music, NW (Dean Tena)<\/p>\n

The awardees will be honored at the EPCC Employee\u00a0Recognition Dinner, which will take place on Friday, May 1 the at El Paso Country Club.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) \u2014 As part of Community College Month, El Paso Community College (EPCC) has named…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[96206,16387,96208,138,9845,140,139,31335,96209,96203,96204,96207,96205],"class_list":{"0":"post-255290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-el-paso","8":"tag-blayne-primozich","9":"tag-community-college","10":"tag-dean-pacheco","11":"tag-el-paso","12":"tag-el-paso-community-college","13":"tag-el-paso-headlines","14":"tag-el-paso-news","15":"tag-epcc","16":"tag-epcc-minnie-stevens-piper-professor-award","17":"tag-fan-chen","18":"tag-minnie-stevens-piper-professor","19":"tag-minnie-stevens-piper-professor-award","20":"tag-ruben-gallardo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}