PDA Annual
Awards
The recipients of the
PDA Distinguished
Service Award and PDA
Public Service Award
received their awards
on Friday April 5 at
the Board of Trustees
Retirement Dinner at
the Gettysburg Hotel.
PDA Distinguished Service Award –
Dr. Raymond R. Lancione
It is my privilege to present the PDA
Distinguished Award to Dr. Raymond
Lancione.
Each year, the Annual Awards Committee
selects a member whose contribution
of time and dedication to PDA has been
exceptionally significant, whose
achievements and high standards have
aided and advanced the science and art
of dentistry or whose public life and
activities have been of such a nature
as to reflect great credit upon the
profession.
For the past 58 years, Ray’s extraordinary
leadership and service to his small
southwestern Pennsylvania community
of McDonald, and the dental profession
at all levels, exemplifies all of those
qualities and then some.
Outgoing president Dr. Jim Boyle
presented Dr. Lancione with
the Distinguished Service Award.
His devotion to serving the needs of his
community and loyal patients continues
to this day. He has been a mentor to dentists
across the state for the past 50 years,
encouraging colleagues to become
actively involved in organized dentistry.
Ray’s steadfast mentorship has recently
helped to support the reactivation of his
local society, the Chartiers Valley Dental
Society. He is a leader and a unifier.
He remains a strong supporter of his
Alma Mater, the University of Pittsburgh,
where he served on the Admissions
Committee for the dental school and
continues to serve on the alumni council,
where he has been a member for the
past 27 years.
Dr. Cynthia Schuler, on behalf of the
Dental Society of Western Pennsylvania,
said it best in describing Dr. Lancione’s
extraordinary skill as a problem-solver:
“Ray can walk into a room of
contentious people and see to it that
all matters are calmly settled to the
best interest of all parties involved,
smoothly and quickly. He is quick,
alert, sensitive to the feelings of others,
knowledgeable and able to see the
entirety of a problem at a glance; in
short he is the consummate diplomat.
Ray is one who prefers to remain the
unsung hero; never taking recognition
got himself, but just seeking results.”
Ray has been a vibrant member of PADPAC
and ADPAC, helping to protect the dental
profession against forces that would
have harmed your best interests.
After graduating from Pitt Dental School
in 1957, Dr. Lancione entered private dental
practice in 1958 and soon after became
a member of Dental Society of Western
Pennsylvania’s board of directors in 1961.
This began a career of him serving in a
multitude of roles at either the district or
statewide level – president, secretary,
program chairman, vice-chairman, delegate,
consultant. The list goes on and on.
Beyond the dental profession, his
colleagues will quickly tell you that Ray
has always been a generous, kind, honest,
trustworthy, compassionate and humble
person who has meant so much to his
community.
It is with great pleasure that I present
Dr. Ray Lancione with the 2019 PDA
Distinguished Service Award.
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JU LY/AU GU ST 2019 | P EN N S YLVA N IA D EN TA L J O UR N A L