Fairmont State University Criminal Justice students recently took top honors at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences/Alpha Phi Sigma National Conference in Kansas City, Mo.

In fact, Fairmont State will be known as the Alpha Phi Sigma National Office for the next two years because three FSU students won the national election for the presidential slate of the organization and will serve a two-year term as its national officers.

The new national officers are Samuel Hamilton, President; Morganne Phillips, Secretary; and Phillip Sands, Treasurer. A student from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore will serve as Vice President.

“As the chapter advisor to Alpha Phi Sigma, I’m very pleased to announce that Fairmont State University students won the national election. The students will be involved in recruiting new chapters, maintaining communication with more than 300 chapters nationwide and planning the next two national conferences that will be held in New Orleans and Baltimore,” said Dr. Deanna Shields, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and advisor to FSU’s Epsilon Iota chapter of Alpha Phi Sigma, the National Criminal Justice Honor Society.

The FSU chapter also won first place in the T-shirt design competition, the Star Chapter Award given by the National Headquarters and the Outstanding Chapter for Leadership Award presented by a panel of judges at the conference.

FSU’s students consistently perform well in the national crime scene competition. Last year the FSU team won first place in the crime scene competition over teams from 16 other schools.

“Because FSU has won so many times, they have now what they call the ‘Fairmont rule.’ If a team wins one year, they can’t compete the next,” said crime scene investigation coach Dr. John McLaughlin.

This year the FSU crime scene investigation students developed, administered and judged the entire crime scene competition.

“With the assistance of Dr. John McLaughlin, the crime scene competition was a tremendous success,” Shields said.