AURORA | One of the most decorated community members to call Aurora home in the past 50 years just got a little more decorated.

Pat Lord, longtime Aurora educator and Aurora Public Schools Board of Education member, was honored by The Medical Center of Aurora last week for more than 40 years of volunteering at the local hospital’s north campus on Potomac Street.

The MCA granted Lord the annual Frist Humanitarian Award, which recognizes Aurora residents who demonstrate exceptional community and volunteer service.

“It’s very humbling,” Lord said. “It’s really something when you get an award for doing something that you love for people that you respect and admire. I’m very honored.”

Lord has worked and volunteered in various capacities at the hospital since helping to form an auxiliary nonprofit for the local health institution, formerly known as Aurora Presbyterian Hospital, in 1974.

“Anyone who has lived in Aurora for an extended period of time will testify that Ed and Pat Lord were a power team and a pillar of the Aurora community in the fullest extent possible,” said Stephanie Sullivan, spokeswoman for MCA parent company HelathONE, in a statement. “Both came from families with deep roots in Aurora and were raised committed to the belief that it was their responsibility to serve the community.”

The Lords served a collective 30 years on the Aurora Public Schools Board of Education from the early 1980s to the mid-2000s. The current APS Board of Education meeting room in the district’s administration building on Peoria Street is named in honor of the couple.

A former teacher with APS, Pat also served on the Aurora Mental Health Board, the League of Women Voters, The Colorado Association of School Boards, and several other local boards and governing bodies, according to a press release.

Past Frist Humanitarian Award winners include Dr. Russ Burcham, a local ophthalmologist, and Rev. David Reeves, an MCA counselor who lead the 7/20 Remembrance Team at the hospital following the Aurora theater shooting in 2012.

Lord was honored during a ceremony at the hospital March 21.