A groundsman at a US university has been honoured after rescuing a student's work from the local rubbish dump. Charles Verbick, a groundskeeper at Northwest Missouri State University, was given a special commendation by the university's board of regents for selflessness in the face of stink. After a maths student found that his papers had been binned by a cleaner, Mr Verbick dug through a landfill site to recover the work.