CSC has new social work professor

He said about 10 years ago, he urged his daughter, Cinnamon, to attend CSC. She took his advice and graduated with a degree in social work in 1999. She is now employed as a social worker at the veterans’ home at Fort Meade, S.D., near Sturgis.

“When I learned of the job opening last spring, I decided I’d apply,” Hoem said. “I wanted to work with young people again, and knew Chadron State was a good place to be.”

Hoem grew up in Saratoga, Wyo. He earned his bachelor of arts degree from Montana State University-Billings and his master’s degree from the University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg. Both degrees were in English.

After teaching English at Northwest College at Powell, Wyo., for a year and at Pearl River College at Poplarville, Miss., for four years, he became an outreach counselor, assisting Vietnam War veterans and their families in accessing information about the Agent Orange Assistance Program.

The contact he had with children with disabilities led Hoem to earn a master of social work degree from Southern Mississippi in 1995. Since then, he has been a social worker specializing in long-term care services provided by the Sturgis Regional Hospital and later was director of the hospital’s home health services.

Last year, he was director of ancillary services at the Sturgis hospital. He is a licensed long-term care administrator.

In 2003, Hoem received the Excellence in Leadership Award given by the Rapid City Regional Hospital, which manages the Sturgis hospital. In the spring of 2005, he was presented the Venables/Scarbrough Award from the South Dakota Healthcare Human Resources Association “in recognition of kindness, hospitality and dedication.”

Hoem replaces Dr. Wes Stevens, who retired and is now living in southwestern Minnesota, where he had spent much of his career before coming to CSC in 2004.