Pat Blankenship Wellons, 81, passed away April 7, 2018. Pat graduated from Union University, a Baptist school in Jackson TN, with a BA in Religion in 1958. She then attended University of Tennessee School of Social Work and earned her BSW in 1959 and Tulane University School of Social Work in New Orleans where she earned her MSW in 1961. Pat and husband, Kennard, moved to Sonoma County California where she worked for the California mental health and child welfare system with juvenile, runaway and troubled teenage girls. In 1967, they moved to Tempe Arizona where Kennard was an assistant professor of Social Work at ASU. In 1969 they moved back to the San Francisco Bay area to Berkeley California where Kennard was a Doctoral Student in Social Work at University of California – Berkeley. Pat worked for the Alemeda County school system as a school social worker with teenage girls and troubled adolescent youth. In 1973, upon graduation, Dr. Kennard W. Wellons took a job at the University of Kentucky, School of Social Work as an associate professor and assistant director of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging in Lexington Kentucky. In 1973, Pat started working for Bluegrass East Mental Health Retardation in the Comprehensive Care Center in Lexington as a counselor for adolescents. She earned her LCSW licensure in 1975. She entered private practice in 1977 and later opened her own practice private practice. In 1980-81 she was voted President of the Kentucky Clinical Social Workers Association where she and a colleague spearheaded the passage of legislation in Frankfort to create the Social Work Licensure Board and allow licensed social workers to have direct access to treat patients. As a result, she received the Kentucky Outstanding Licensed Clinical Social Worker of the year in 1981. In 1981-82 she was elected President of the National Clinical Social Workers Association and honored as 1982 National Clinical Social Worker of the year. She was also a board member of the National Registry of Health Care Providers in Clinical Social Work and Treasurer of the Federation of Societies for Clinical Social Work. For 41 years Pat was an independent private clinician in adolescent & adult individual and group therapy, a supervisor for University of Kentucky MSW students and LCSW licensure candidates, a mental health consultant to numerous local churches and city, county state and federal courts and judges, a nationally recognized speaker, a mental health trial expert and a mentor to hundreds of social workers in the field, particularly women. In 2016, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement award from the Kentucky Clinical Social Workers Association. Pat was preceded in death by six siblings. She is survived by a son, a grandson, over 50 nieces, nephews and their children. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Pat B. and Dr. Kennard Wellons scholarship fund at the University of Kentucky College of Social Work for first generation MSW students. Dr. Kennard Wellons was a long-time full professor of Social Work at UK and Pat Wellons was a mentor and supervisor to hundreds of UK MSW students in clinical placements and licensing. Memorial service was held April 14, 2018 at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church. (Source: ASU Foundation)