Spec. 1st Class Gordon Spears recently received the recruiting award at the armory in Gainesville from Army recruiter Staff Sgt. David Spurgeons. Spears works at the Regional Training Institute for the Army National Guard in Atlanta as an infantry instructor and full-time as a lieutenant at Lee Arrandale State Prison in Alto. He has served 28 years, six deployments and three combat missions.

On Aug. 8, Sara R. McCleary was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant into the aviation branch of the U.S. Army at North Georgia College & State University. She also graduated the same day with a bachelor's degree in exercise science. McCleary will be a recruiting officer for the NGCSU Military Science Department until September 2009, when she will begin helicopter training at Fort Rucker in Alabama. McCleary is the daughter of John and Sheila McCleary of Gainesville.

Brig. Gen. James L. Terry, director of the Future Force Integration Directorate in Fort Bliss, Texas, is to be promoted to the rank of major general. Born in Chatsworth, Terry is a 1974 graduate of Murray County High School and a 1978 graduate of North Georgia College & State University, where he was commissioned as an infantry second lieutenant through Army ROTC. He has master's degrees in business administration from Webster University and in national security strategy and policy from the National Defense University. Terry and his wife, Julie Grogan of Gainesville, have three children. Grogan is a 1975 graduate of Gainesville High School and a 1978 graduate of North Georgia College & State University. Her parents, Keith and Lida Grogan, live in Gainesville.