Celebrating Our Best
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* Rebecca S. Wilder

![Figure1](http://jdh.adha.org/https://jdh.adha.org/content/jdenthyg/88/suppl_1/4/F1.medium.gif)

[Figure1](http://jdh.adha.org/content/88/suppl_1/4/F1)

This issue of the Journal of Dental Hygiene is celebrating extraordinary dental hygienists who are contributing to our science. As a career academician, teacher, researcher and graduate program director, it makes me excited to see the exceptional dental hygienists who are committed to the profession and taking a lead in research and publishing.

The ADHA/Sigma Phi Alpha award competition has been in existence for several years. The competition is made possible through a grant from Johnson and Johnson Healthcare Products, Division of McNEIL PPC, Inc. We now have two categories for the award at the Master of Science/Doctoral level and at the Baccalaureate level. It is a very competitive process and can be quite challenging if the paper is the first one the student has every submitted for publication. We are pleased to be publishing the two winning manuscripts from the 2013 competition. The schools represented include Forsyth School of Dental Hygiene in Boston, Massachusetts and The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Another new award is the Journal of Dental Hygiene Best Paper Award. This year, an independent panel of judges reviewed all original research project papers that were published in the Journal of Dental Hygiene from January to December 2013. They had specific criteria to utilize to judge the manuscripts and were tasked with selecting the best paper and the runner-up. Although the papers have already been published in our digital journal, we are pleased to present the two manuscripts in this print supplement. The schools represented are the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, NC and the University of Missouri-Kansas City in Kansas City, Missouri. Congratulations to the authors of both papers!

Finally, none of these papers would have been possible without outstanding mentoring from dental hygiene and dental faculty members who assisted, encouraged, edited and helped guide these students and authors through the writing process. We know it is not easy to mentor a novice writer, but it is so worth it in the end! These students are our future leaders, scholars, educators and innovators. To all of the mentors - thank you! And finally, a big thank you to J&J for helping us showcase our winning manuscripts!

Enjoy the CLL and Las Vegas!

Sincerely,

Rebecca Wilder, RDH, BS, MS

Editor–in–Chief, Journal of Dental Hygiene

*   Copyright © 2014 The American Dental Hygienists’ Association