A Minneapolis woman receives a national honor from the National Weather Service, and Governor Sam Brownback.

The governor Thursday afternoon presented Melba Bruce with the Thomas Jefferson Award.

Bruce is a Cooperative Weather Observer for the National Weather Service. As a weather observer she provides daily high and low temperature reports, precipitation and snowfall measurements, and river measurements.

Bruce has been sending in her daily reports to the National Weather Service in Topeka for the past 29 years. The office tells KSAL News that she has not missed a single daily report during those 29 years.

The Thomas Jefferson Award is presented annually to five of the most outstanding cooperative weather observers in the United States for unusual and outstanding accomplishments in the field of meteorological observations. Those so honored are selected from the more than 11,000 observers who devote so much time and effort to recording the climate of this country.

The award is named in honor of President Thomas Jefferson, who began taking weather observations in 1776 and maintained a virtually unbroken record through 1816. It is the highest award the National Weather Service presents to volunteer observers.

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and officials from the National Weather Service traveled to Minneapolis Thursday afternoon to honor Bruce with the award.