Garrard County Coroner Daryl Hodge has received the highest award the State Coro-ners Association bestows to their members. On Thursday April 24, while he was at-tending the State Coroner As-sociation Conference in Lou-isville, Coroner Daryl Hodge received the Master Coroner Award. At this time there are only about 40-50 active Mas-ter Coroners in the State.

There are three levels of achievement for the coro-ners: basic, advanced, and master. Coroner Hodge has reached all of these levels. To obtain a Master Coroner the coroner has to complete 300 postmortem examinations, serve in the position for 12 years, be a member of the coroner association for eight years, and attend a minimum of two coroners conferences.

Coroners are called to do death investigations to de-termine cause and manner of death for any death that has unknown facts or history. De-cisions have to be made to be

.sure that the death is prop-erly handled.

Coroners do not perform autopsies, the forensic pa-thologist conducts those in Frankfort but on occasion a coroner might assist. Coro-

ners can do their own toxi-cology for drug screens by drawing fl uids as they have been trained to do.

County Coroner Achieves Highest Award

Dr. Bill Lee (R) President of the Kentucky Coroners Association presents Garrard County Coroner Daryl Hodge with the Master Coro-ners Award