{"id":22278,"date":"2025-04-11T16:00:57","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T20:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/richmond-city\/?p=22278"},"modified":"2025-04-11T16:00:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T20:00:57","slug":"markez-johnson-wins-rookie-of-the-year-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/richmond-city\/2025\/04\/11\/markez-johnson-wins-rookie-of-the-year-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Markez Johnson wins Rookie of the Year award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our newest Ryan White non-medical case manager, Markez Johnson, received the Virginia Ryan White Rookie Non-Medical Case Manager of the Year prize.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">When Markez Johnson, RHHD\u2019s newest Ryan White non-medical case manager, showed up at the Ryan White summit in Roanoke this spring, he didn\u2019t know he\u2019d be leaving a winner! At the summit, Markez was awarded the Virginia Ryan White Rookie Non-Medical Case Manager of the year prize. He was selected from more than 50 new case managers across the commonwealth.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">Ryan White non-medical case managers help people who have newly received HIV diagnoses or who are trying to return to care. They work with them to figure out if they are eligible for\u00a0<a title=\"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/disease-prevention\/disease-prevention\/hiv-care-services\/\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/disease-prevention\/disease-prevention\/hiv-care-services\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-auth=\"NotApplicable\" data-linkindex=\"27\">Ryan White services<\/a>\u00a0and help them with paperwork and connections to important resources.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">Markez won the award not only because of the quality of his nominations, but the quantity. While other nominees had a nomination or two from their teammates, Markez received a whopping five nominations, both from his team and the partners he works with closely. It\u2019s a testament to Markez\u2019s hard work and the relationships he\u2019s built to make sure that clients are supported throughout their journey into HIV care.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">One of the nominations came from supervisor Stephanie Mbengue and mentor Margie Sullivan, a former award-winner herself. Stephanie says that Markez\u2019s award is well-deserved. \u201cHe brings a passion to this work that has fueled his ability to quickly master what it takes to provide excellent linkage to Ryan White care and services. He is committed to clients, quality reporting and teamwork, making him a true asset in our Ryan White programs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">Markez started on RHHD\u2019s Disease Intervention Specialist (DIS) team, which helps people who test positive for HIV or STIs locate treatment and share the diagnosis with any past partners: \u201cIt really got me into assisting people who have infectious diseases or HIV. There were a lot of people who didn\u2019t want to know this information. So I try to let the people know\u2014we don\u2019t want anything to progress and get worse for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">When an opening appeared for a new non-medical case manager, Markez applied! The role draws on his DIS experience and his ability to communicate with people: \u201cI come in with open arms\u2014I&#8217;m here to hug them and talk about the progress they\u2019re going to make from this point on.\u201d He also credits his success to the mentorship of Margie Sullivan. \u201cI\u2019m grateful that I had Margie as my mentor,\u201d Markez says. \u201cShe&#8217;s spent more than 20 years in case management for Ryan White. From the very start, she taught me the proper way to process these clients.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">The Rookie of the Year award capped off a meaningful first Ryan White summit for Markez. Highlights included the candied bacon at the Hotel Roanoke and some team building karaoke. More meaningfully, representatives from the\u00a0<a title=\"https:\/\/www.aidsmemorial.org\/interactive-aids-quilt\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aidsmemorial.org\/interactive-aids-quilt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-auth=\"NotApplicable\" data-linkindex=\"28\">National AIDS Memorial<\/a>\u00a0brought panels\u00a0from the AIDS quilt to the conference, and conference participants contributed to a new panel for the quilt. Markez had the opportunity to add messages representing two older family members who passed away from AIDS: \u201cIt was moving to see that the 12 inserts were just a small part of the quilt,\u201d he shares. \u201cAnd now my loved ones are on it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">Since he\u2019s been home, Markez has celebrated his victory with a whole community of folks: \u201cIt\u2019s exciting to see that the people I love so much are so proud of me. My mom wants to put my award on her desk.\u201d And Markez isn\u2019t stopping with Rookie of the Year. \u201cI\u2019m gonna keep making RHHD\u00a0proud,\u201d he says!<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/content\/uploads\/sites\/119\/2025\/04\/MARQUEZ.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-22279\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/content\/uploads\/sites\/119\/2025\/04\/MARQUEZ.png\" alt=\"Marquez Johnson wins award\" width=\"591\" height=\"412\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/content\/uploads\/sites\/119\/2025\/04\/MARQUEZ.png 591w, https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/content\/uploads\/sites\/119\/2025\/04\/MARQUEZ-300x209.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 591px) 100vw, 591px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our newest Ryan White non-medical case manager, Markez Johnson, received the Virginia Ryan White Rookie Non-Medical Case Manager of the Year prize. When Markez Johnson, RHHD\u2019s newest Ryan White non-medical [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":383,"featured_media":22279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"modified_by":null,"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Markez Johnson wins Rookie of the Year award - Richmond City Health Department<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/richmond-city\/2025\/04\/11\/markez-johnson-wins-rookie-of-the-year-award\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Markez Johnson wins Rookie of the Year award - Richmond City Health Department\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Our newest Ryan White non-medical case manager, Markez Johnson, received the Virginia Ryan White Rookie Non-Medical Case Manager of the Year prize. 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