Wuests Honored at 2010 Sunflower Revolution Symposium

CINCINNATI–Sandy and Jerry Wuest of Lawrenceburg, Ind., longtime advocates for people with Parkinson’s disease, were honored at the Sunflower Revolution educational symposium on Sept. 11 in Loveland, Ohio. They were presented with the 2010 Sunflower Victory Award by Davis Phinney, the Parkinson’s advocate and former Tour de France cyclist.

The Sunflower Revolution symposium is an annual educational program of the James J. and Joan A. Gardner Center for Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders at the University of Cincinnati Neuroscience Institute (UCNI).

The Wuests, in conjunction with the Parkinson's Disease Support Network of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to UC over the years in support of Parkinson's research. Jerry Wuest has lived with Parkinson’s for 33 years.

“The Sunflower Victory Award acknowledges those who inspire, empower and give hope in our Parkinson's disease community,” said Alberto Espay, MD, Assistant Professor of Neurology and a Parkinson’s specialist at the Gardner Center. “Sandy and Jerry Wuest represent this spirit and the ‘Move to Live, Live to Move’ philosophy of the Sunflower Revolution. The Wuests are community leaders in the generation of awareness, support groups and fund raising for Parkinson's disease well-being and research. They achieve incremental victories for the Parkinson's community every day!”

“Jerry and I are very honored to receive the award,” Sandy Wuest said during the ceremony. “Our main goal in life is to help people with Parkinson’s disease and to raise money for Parkinson’s research at UC.”

Kim Seroogy, PhD, a Parkinson’s researcher at the Gardner Center and Director of the Selma Schottenstein Harris Laboratory for Research in Parkinson’s, described the Wuests as truly inspirational. “I admire them on so many different levels -- as friends, as benefactors, and particularly as role models of how to face adversity with courage, determination and humor.  Jerry and Sandy are simply the best of Cincinnati.”

The Sunflower Symposium is a cornerstone of the Sunflower Revolution, a three-day event involving UCNI, the UC and University Hospital Foundations, the Mayfield Clinic, the Historic Milford Association, and the Davis Phinney Foundation, based in Boulder, Colo.

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The Mayfield Clinic is recognized as one of the nation's leading physician organizations for clinical care, education, and research of the spine and brain. Supported by 20 neurosurgeons, five neurointensivists, an interventional radiologist, and a pain specialist, the Clinic treats 20,000 patients from 35 states and 13 countries in a typical year. Mayfield's physicians have pioneered surgical procedures and instrumentation that have revolutionized the medical art of neurosurgery for brain tumors and neurovascular diseases and disorders.