PEORIA — The namesake and winner of the first Befus Humanitarianism Award won’t be present when the honor is presented Friday.

Dr. Steven Befus died in 2003 at age 51. But his medical missionary work in the midst of Liberia’s worst civil wars made a lasting impact in the family medicine residency program at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria.

UICOMP officials will present the award to his widow, Sue, during the residency program’s graduation ceremonies at East Peoria Holiday Inn & Suites. The honor includes a $1,000 donation from UnityPoint Health-Methodist Proctor Foundation to the charity of the recipient’s choice.

Befus, his wife, and three children, all under the age of 5, left for Liberia in 1981, soon after he completed the family medicine residency at Methodist.He returned to Peoria periodically, either to raise money or to renew his visa. During those intervals, he taught at UICOMP.

“Befus was a wonderful teacher but he was embarrassed because he hadn’t kept up with the latest medical technology,” said Dr. Thomas Golemon, chairman of UICOMP’s community and family medicine department. “To us, he was a breath of fresh air because he was doing all this work without technology.”

Befus and his wife, a nurse, worked at a small hospital outside the capital city of Monrovia. The medical mission was sponsored by SIM International, formerly Sudan Interior Mission.

Healthcare and healthcare facilities were already woefully inadequate when Befus and his family arrived in the West African country. According to a United Nations report, there were only 400 government-trained doctors in