Pikeville wheelchair hockey star receives award

Pikeville, N.C. — Jonathan Greeson of Pikeville has received the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s 2009 Robert Ross Personal Achievement Award for North Carolina.

Greeson, 27, was selected for the honor because of his personal and academic success, and for his advocacy for people with disabilities.

Greeson will appear on the 2009 Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon on September 7 on WLFL-TV.

Initiated in 1992, the national awards program recognizes the accomplishments and community service of people with disabilities caused by any of the diseases in MDA’s program.

Greesonhas spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a progressive disease that causes weakness in the muscles closest to the center of the body, such as those of the shoulders, hips, thighs and upper back.

Greeson received an SMA diagnosis when he was 13 months old, and began using a power wheelchair at 15 months as the result of general muscle weakness.

A 2004 graduate of North Carolina State University's business management program, Greeson works for Wayne County's office of North Carolina Cooperative Extension as a budget analyst for the 4-H program.

He is the founder and president of the North Carolina Electric Wheelchair Hockey Association (NCEWHA) and, in 2006, received the Goldsboro Mayor's Committee for Disabilities Employee of the Year award.