City Resident, BHS Graduate Annika Lafferty Thrasher Named December '23 WVU OT Outstanding Alumni
By Connect-Bridgeport Staff on January 16, 2024
The WVU Division of Occupational Therapy awarded the third alumni the Outstanding Alumni Award in December 2023. This award was designed to recognize a graduate of the Division of Occupational Therapy who has achieved a high level of career success while positively representing the division and university.
Annika "Annie" Lafferty Thrasher, MOT, OTR/L, BCP, began her professional OT career working in the school system and early intervention in two rural counties in West Virginia. Thrasher, pictured left, was quickly promoted to manager of the school-based OTs and PTs, where she
trained and managed new hires for her company, as well as facilitated the professional relationships between the county school systems and the therapists.
trained and managed new hires for her company, as well as facilitated the professional relationships between the county school systems and the therapists.
When Thrasher began her career with Best Life Therapy almost a decade ago, the company served just 4 counties in West Virginia and had 10 employees including herself. Annika was instrumental in growing the company to meet underserved areas to now servicing over 35 counties in West Virginia and 5 states, including two new therapy-based companies, and hiring numerous WVU OT grads. Thrasher is now the Chief Compliance Officer of Best Life Therapy, Integrated Speech Solutions, and E-School Docs.
Thrasher is a licensed OT in West Virginia. She is also registered by the National Board Certification in Occupational Therapy and is one of three occupational therapists in West Virginia Board Certified in Pediatrics through the American Occupational Therapy Association. Thrasher has volunteered her time and expertise to the Division in numerous ways over the years, including assisting with the admissions process, completing guest lectures, participating in mock interviews, partnering with the clinical reasoning instructors on non-traditional group interventions with the unhoused population in partnership with the United Way of Harrison and Doddridge counties, and many more.
We are incredibly fortunate to have Thrasher as an alumnus of the program and are so appreciative of her ongoing positive representation of occupational therapy at WVU. Thrasher joins Amanda Acord-Vira, EdD, MOT, OTR/L, CBIS, FAOTA, and Ester Jones, MOT, OTR/L, CDP, CDT, GS, CTOP as the third recipient of this award.
Thrasher is a Bridgeport resident married to Austin Thrasher and a 2007 BHS graduate.
