U.S. Army Garrison Fort Riley commander, Col. Stephen Shrader, and Command Sgt. Maj. Andrew T. Bristow II, garrison senior noncommissioned officer, recognized civilian employees during the Employee of the Month Ceremony March 8 inside the garrison headquarters.

"Today we get to recognize a whole bunch of folks that are doing great things in the garrison," Shrader said.

Danitta Brantley, Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation, received the Employee of the Month for February, received a Department of the Army Certificate of Commendation and is now eligible for the Garrison Employee of the Quarter, second quarter fiscal year 19.

Brantley has served as Child and Youth Services administrator since July 2017, her nomination stated. For the last 12 months she has been fulfilling the duty of two CYS administrators due to the vacancy on the CYS leadership team.

Brantley provides management oversight for 10 programs, affecting more than 1,000 children and youth each day. Even though Brantley has double the caseload she would normally have, she continues to provide outstanding support and oversight to five child development centers, two school age centers, the youth center, the youth sports and fitness program and the family care program.

Several members of the CYS staff were wearing homemade "I Love Woo" shirts or raising signs that read "I Love Woo" cheered Brantley on.

"When you look at the CYS team and their "I Love Woo" shirts and their signs, you can see how much Danitta is loved," said David Roudybush, director, DFMWR. "Danitta had one of the hardest jobs on the installation.

"As many of you know, CYS is very heavily scrutinized and heavily inspected and Danitta is our frontline leadership that is out there keeping all the programs moving forward," he said. "Being that mentor and leader for all of our facilities allows me to sleep at night, sleep-in in the mornings when the power goes off, when the heat goes off. But, in the end she does it so well her team is willing to make shirts, make signs, come out to say 'thank you.' I say thank you as well."

Other nominees for Employee of the Month included; Adrianne Watson, Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security and police Lt. Randy Lara, Directorate of Emergency Services. Each nominee received a certificate of appreciation signed by the garrison commander and garrison command sergeant major along with a garrison coin.

Other awards

Michael Hummel, DPTMS, received a U.S. Army Garrison Certificate of Achievement for safety. Hummel installed 89 safety warning signs that helped Soldiers identify the hazards within the training areas, preventing accidents and injuries.

The members of the Garrison public affairs office and the 1st Infantry Division Post were recognized for receiving 10 Kansas Press Association Awards of Excellence Feb. 9 in Topeka, Kansas. The awards included one first place, five second place and four third place finishes.

"They are knocking it out of the park when it comes to PAO," Shrader said. "If you've been back in their office, upstairs down the hallway, you haven't gone down there and seen all the awards hanging on the wall for what they do -- whether it's the 1st Infantry Division Post or the articles, the livestreams, whatever -- we have great PAO people here on this installation."