Setting a New Standard
Cadet Micah Barnes, Operation Lone Star, 100th MPAD
2008/08/01
Lt. Gen. Charles Rodriguez, the Adjutant General of Texas presented Texas State Guard (TXSG) Colonel Frank Stead, Medical Brigade, with the Texas State Distinguished Service Medal in Brownsville, Texas, for his outstanding performance during the last year’s Operation Lone Star 07 (OLS).
Photo by CPT . Michael Spraggins PAO TXSG
HARLINGEN, Texas (August 1, 2008) - Texas State Guard (TXSG) Colonel Frank Stead, Medical Brigade, received the Texas State Distinguished Service Medal in Brownsville, Texas, for his outstanding performance during the last year’s Operation Lone Star 07 (OLS).
OLS is a joint mission which is held annually between the Texas Military Forces (Texas Army National Guard along with Air National Guard and Texas State Guard) and the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) to provide basic health care and dental services to the underserved population living along Texas’ southern border from the lower the Rio Grand Valley to Laredo.
The award was presented by Lt. Gen. Charles Rodriguez, the Adjutant General of Texas during a luncheon held for important guests and visitors to OLS’s main operating facility, Besteiro Middle School.
Stead has shown the ability to not only execute, but to improve upon the task given to him from his superiors. “In addition to exceptional service to the Texas State Guard (TXSG), Frank had truly been the heart and soul of Operation Lone Star for a long time.” said Colonel Joel E. Henness, this year’s commander of Joint Task Force OLS.
The call to service had appealed to Stead ever since he was a graduate student at Ohio State University and was exempted from the Vietnam draft. This exemption increased his yearning to serve and protect this country, which inevitably led him to join the Texas State Guard. “I always wanted to serve since that time and I felt that this was my chance to do so after my retirement in Fredricksburg,” said Stead.
In February of 2003 Stead received his commission in the Texas State Guard, within the year he was the Logistics officer for Operation Lone Star. “Being the manager of the 11th largest public utility company in America the task was something I could handle.” In the following years, he continued to excel and by 2007 he was named operations commander.
During his tenure as commander, Stead took the opportunity to visit the people out in their own communities. The understanding resulting from these visits led to great innovation and improvement in the service provided by the Texas Joint Military Forces during the medical disaster training exercise.
He continued pressing the need for community interaction this year by sending out a mobile team to serve those trapped by flooding from the recent landing of Hurricane Dolly.
This emergency preparedness that OLS encompasses is familiar to him as the head of Emergency Management at the Hill Country Memorial Hospital in Fredericksburg, Texas. When you tie this together with his part-time work as an Emergency Medical Technician and volunteer fireman for Fredricksburg, we are very grateful to have had him as a leader of Operation Lone Star.