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July 9, 2005
 
Summers County Social Worker Peggy Rossi Dies in Drowning Accident in El Salvador
 
by David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network
 
Hinton, WV (HNN) - HNN has learned that Margaret Ann "Peggy" Rossi, Executive Coordinator of Hinton's REACHH-Family Resource Center, died in a swimming accident in the Pacific Ocean in El Salvador on Thursday, July 7, 2005.
 
Details are sketchy at this time, but her death was confirmed by a worker at REACHH-FRC, who said Peggy's husband, Jonathan Averill, was in El Salvador on Friday, July 8, 2005, making arrangements for the return of the body to the United States. Averill is a Spanish/Social Studies teacher at Summers County High School in Hinton and was swimming with her at the time of the mishap. A riptide or undertow is believed to have contributed to the death of Rossi.
 
Rossi, with REACHH since it was organized in 1991, was named the West Virginia National Association of Social Workers Social Worker of Year on April 10, 2002. A social work practitioner for more than 27 years, Peggy Rossi earned a BS at Cornell University and an MSW at West Virginia University in 1976. She was a certified social worker in West Virginia and had been a member of the National Association of Social Workers since 1988. Peggy Rossi is the author of Case Management in Health Care, 2nd Edition - Hardcover (2003).
 
Under her direction, Hinton's REACHH-Family Resource Center was "guided by the beliefs that all children and their families deserve to be protected, supported, empowered and provided with the opportunity to reach their fullest potential and to live lives free of violence and abuse; and that services should be both community-based and family-centered."
 
On a personal note, I've known Peggy Rossi for many years. She and Jon are fellow transplants to Summers County. Peggy was a petite, gracious woman with a gigantic heart. She was a person who enriched the lives of all those who came in contact with her. We all will miss her.
 
Funeral arrangements are pending.