Nearly 100 University of Delaware employees gathered Dec. 1 in the Bacchus Theatre of the Perkins Student Center to celebrate the completion of a successful 2016 Walktober program.

Successes were shared and awards were presented.

Diana Levering of the Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences in the College of Health Sciences kicked off the event by sharing her inspirational health journey.

Levering described how she has turned her life around with diet and exercise, and in turn, has lost weight and kicked her medications.

A representative of UD Employee Health and Wellness, which sponsored Walktober, said the staff “applauds Diana in all her efforts and we were so pleased to have her speak to the group.”

This year’s Walktober program was the most successful program to date. A few statistics about the fall 2016 program:

• There were close to 500 participants and 49 teams.

• The group accumulated 132,175,112 steps, which is equal to 62,583 miles. This means the group this year, in only six short weeks, walked around the equator 2.5 times.

• The group clocked 93,866 activity minutes.

• A total of 56,129 leaf points were earned.

• The group average was over 10,000 steps per day.

Team competition

There was a four-way tie for first place this year, which was a first for Walktober.

All four teams had a perfect leaf score over the course of the program, earning the maximum 210 points. Since all teams received a perfect leaf score, the average steps per participant score was calculated to determine the winning team.

The winners from the team competition are: First, the Soleful Strutters, Rosina Delp, Nathan Frankling, Sarah Ashley and Toni Wall, with an average of 689,938 steps per participant; second, the UN-DE FEETED STARS, Gina Pusey, Airelle Giordano, Kyle Connelly and Michael Palmer, with an average of 641,721 steps per participant; third, Kool Kidz, Juan Castellanos, Lizette Camacho, Brooke Uhde, Brian Kunkel and Patti Kunkel, with an average of 561,417.4 steps per participant; and, fourth, the CAS Illuminators, Too, Cheri Jones, George Watson, David Wilson, Marsha Rybicki and Douglas Doren, with an average of 523,967.4 steps per participant.

Individual competition

The top three individuals combined earned over three million steps. They are: First, Sarah Ashley with 1,249,558 steps; second, Patrick Devlin with 1,125,232 steps; and third, Federico Cruz with 902, 715 steps.

College Cup competition

The Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics won its first College Cup, and the college had the highest average point per participant score by a landslide.

Golden Leaf recipients

The following individuals are being recognized for perfect scores over the course of the 2016 Walktober program, earning a gold leaf on each of the 42 days of the program:

Derrick Allen, Elizabeth Allen, Sarah Ashley, Robert Bateman, Julia Bayuk, Signe Bell, Barry Bodt, Patricia Brown, Tracey Bryant, Lizette Camacho, Juan Castellano, Christine Cheserone, Diane Clark, Kyle Connelly, Federico Cruz, Tayler Dean, Rosina Delp, Jo-Anne Deshon, Patrick Devlin, Douglas Doren, Nancy Dornstauder, Cynthia Doucette, and

Melissa Dreger, Alexander Duarte, Andrew Fields, Sandra Fields, Adam Foley, Stephen Fols, Patricia Fox, Nathan Franklin, Airelle Giordano, Katie Griffin, Lori Hans, Matt Hans, Bill Harris, Coleen Hick, Lindsay Hughes, Cheri Jones, Alex Keen, Alvita Kelly, Jessica King, Victoria King, Diane Klonowski, Stas Kukulka, Brian Kunkel, Patti Kunkel, and

Sarah LaFave, Valerie Lane, Caitlin Larracey, Peter Lenhoff, Alex Lindstrom, Gwendolyn Looby, Julia Ma, Alyson Mann, Karen May, Lisa McBeth, Kathleen McCoy, Kelly McLaughlin, Michael Palmer, Christopher Petrone, John Pollock, Sally Pruett, Gina Pusey, Bruce Raker, Michelle Richards, Karen Rodalunas, Marsha Rybicki, and

Alparslan Sari, Tamara Schirmer, Jennifer Seabrook, Mark Seifert, William Seymour, Vicki Shivery, Ted Socha, John Stocker, Matthew Toner, Brooke Uhde, Teonette Velasco, Toni Wall, Norris Waller, George Watson, David Wilson, Debra Yarrington and Danielle Zack.