Distinguished Service Award - Dinah (Wells) Courrier ‘64
Dinah Courrier elevates the distinguished service she has provided to WVU Potomac State College and has spent a lifetime in service to and giving back to her alma mater.
She earned her associate degree in 1964 from Potomac State and a bachelor’s degree in business education and English at WVU. She obtained her master’s degree in education with a concentration in English from Frostburg State University.
Dinah began her career at Potomac State in 1978 and during the following 32 years served the College in many different roles – 22 as a professor and another 10 as an administrator.
Dinah served as professor of office systems technology, social justice liaison, retention coordinator, and off-campus instruction coordinator. She also served as interim dean of academic affairs from 2000 to 2002.
She often volunteered her time at the College, serving as adviser to the Sigma Phi Omega Honor Society and other student clubs on campus; as a board member of the PSC Alumni Association and the Potomac State College Foundation Board (prior to its merger with WVU Foundation) and as a presenter to various events on a variety of subjects.
Dinah is also the author of Potomac State College: The College History Series published by Arcadia Publishing
She also currently volunteers on the WVU Potomac Valley Hospital Board and the Aging and Family Services Board. A local history buff, Dinah serves as curator of the Mineral County Historical Society Museum.
Dinah was named the 2021 Humanitarian of the Year by the Community Trust Foundation (CTF).
She and her husband Jim, also a PSC alumnus, have been married 57 years, have four children, all of whom also attended PSC, and 12 grandchildren.
Alumni Achievement Award – Matty Staudt ‘92
Matty Staudt started in radio at the age of 16 in his hometown of Keyser, W.Va., becoming the youngest DJ in West Virginia. Matty attended Potomac State College from 1991 to 1992 before going on to WVU Morgantown where he graduated in 1995 with a degree in English/Creative Writing. In 2016 Matty went back to school at Southern New Hampshire University where he received his master’s degree in digital media.
After several years in small market radio as a DJ and programmer, Matty moved to CBS Radio as the executive producer for the G. Gordon Liddy Show in D.C., The Sports Guys at WNEW NYC, and Alice Radio and Live 105 in San Francisco as the AM executive producer.
Seeing the potential in podcasting, Matty left the #1 morning show, The Alice Morning Show, in San Francisco to become part of the startup team and the first director of Content and Community at Stitcher in 2007.
At Stitcher, Staudt won a Webby award before Deezer acquired the company. Staudt was radio's first vice president of podcast programming at iHeartRadio and launched more than 300 shows and helped build the content that became the iHeartRadio Podcast Network.
Matty is also the founder of Jam Street Media which just received its first Ambie Nomination for Best Sports Podcast in 2022 and has produced hit shows like Appalachian Mysteria and Deep Cover: The Real Donnie Brasco.
This past year, Staudt was named chief development officer at Amaze Media Labs, focused on creating high-quality podcasts for Fortune 500 companies like Ford, MAC Cosmetics, Vistaprint, Pfizer, Koch Foundation, and Amarin. Leaving Amaze in June of 2022, Matty began focusing on consulting, producing both original and branded content for the network and working with creators on new shows. Matty’s other passions are teaching and mentoring. He is a professor and general manager for The Academy of Art University's Urban Knights Radio in San Francisco, where he built the first podcasting program in the United States 10 years ago. Matty also teaches at West Virginia University. He serves as an adviser and consultant for Ossa Collective, YAP, The Podcast Academy, Second Chance Studio, and Sounder FM.
Young Alumni Award – Nicholas Gardner ‘08
Nicholas Gardner graduated from West Virginia University Potomac State College with an associate degree in geology in 2008 and earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Marshall University in 2015. Nicholas then went on to earn his master’s degree in library science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania in 2019.
Nicholas began working at the library as a temporary employee in 2015 and was named director of the Mary F. Shipper Library in early 2022.
Nicholas is a member of the West Virginia Library Association, the West Virginia/Western Pennsylvania Chapter of the Association for College & Research Libraries, and the Special Libraries Association. He has regularly presented at association meetings since 2018. In 2020-2021, Nicholas chaired the West Virginia Library Association's Library Instruction Roundtable.
Nicholas has written or contributed to numerous research papers, which have been published in several academic journals, such as Anatomical Record, Mammal Review, Marine and Fishery Sciences, Palaeontologia Electronica, and PLoS ONE.