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Association of West Virginia Solid Waste Authorities 2004 Volunteer of the Year
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VOLUNTEER OF YEAR AWARD FOR 2004
This
years volunteer will join the rank of others who have received this
prestigious award. Previous winners include Allan Babcock of Marion
County, the late Frederick Clark of Randolph County, the late Roger
King of Wood County, Denver Enoch of Ritchie County, Edwin C. “Bud”
Weigle of Tyler County, Walter Swiger of Harrison County, Harry
Reiter of Brooke County, John Tuckwiller of Greenbrier County and
last years winner Sarah Douglas of Wirt County Solid Waste
Authority. I’d
like to thank the Selection Committee members, Tammy Bonar, Alice Jo
Buzzard, Bridget Grounds, and Dr. Ralph Taylor, for their work in
selecting the Volunteer of the Year. West
Virginia is fortunate to have so many fine volunteers serving on its
solid waste authorities, and it is a special honor to be singled-out
and recognized among your peers as the Volunteer of the Year. It
is the highest honor that this Association bestows upon a solid
waste authority volunteer member. This
years recipient grew up during the great depression and this
experience planted the seed of “reuse, make do, or do without.” Lack
of money in the family and in the community as well, instilled the
principals of participation, cooperation and helping one’s
neighbor...all attributes that contributed to a life’s philosophy
that has the ethic of volunteerism as a major re-occurring theme. In
this volunteers’ earlier years, summers away from college were spent
volunteering time to work in a state park restaurant and making
cotton mattresses for the family and other families in need.
During the second World War with resources scarce, this volunteer
and family recycled tin cans, glass jars, paper, cardboard and of
course clothing. In the
early 1950's this volunteer and his or her spouse, for a fee,
established only the second cable television service in the state.
However, they voluntarily provided this service, as well as televisions,
to the local schools and the community’s nursing home, at no cost
whatsoever.
Other volunteer achievements, just to name a few, included being a
Sunday School Teacher every Sunday afternoon for twelve years, making
and baking 20 to 30 loaves of bread each week for ten years to raise
money for the Chapel, working as a volunteer for one entire summer at
the local high school, patching plaster, painting, cleaning floors and
making other needed improvements, volunteering one whole year to help
improve the appearance of the towns elementary school and its
playground, donating and maintaining, to this day, flower pots located
throughout the town, and as you can guess this volunteer provides the
flowers and waters them regularly. Also, our volunteer helped organize a
craft store in the county to sell locally made crafts and manned this
innovative craft shop three days a week for over 3 years. If all
of this were not enough, our volunteer is an active member and Chair of
a county planning and development council, served as a volunteer on the
Memorial Hospital Board for six years, working tirelessly to get a
medical facility reopened to provide medical services to the area and to
hire local physicians so that our young medical graduates have an
opportunity to locate back home, if they so desire. This
special person once served in an elected capacity for fifteen years as a
member of the town’s council and later as its Mayor, and as you would
expect donated the bulk of the salary back to the community for its
betterment. This
years volunteer has been a solid waste authority Board member for 16
years, currently serving as the Chairman after being duly elected to
that capacity by the Authority’s other board of directors in July of
1998. During these 16 years this individual has only missed one board
meeting. Through this volunteer’s leadership as Chairman, the solid waste authority has made an incredible turnaround and is a success story in the realm of public entities.
Through this volunteer’s leadership as Chairman, the solid waste
authority has made an incredible turnaround and is a success story
in the realm of public entities.
In the early 1990's the Authority made a commitment to build two solid
waste transfer stations to serve the needs of a five-county area.
Several major users later defected in favor of direct haul to
out-of-area landfills. The Authority, of course, was faced with
operating two DEP approved facilities in an environmentally compliant
manner, but with a significant loss in tonnage and revenue. As a result
of this, the Authority began accumulating an unbearable amount of debt.
In fact, the Authority looked into the aspects of public bankruptcy.
But in assuming the chairmanship in 1998, this volunteer accepted the
tremendous challenge of putting the Authority back on solid financial
ground. This task was not easy! Working closely with legislators, the
governor’s office, the Authority’s board members and others, this
volunteer was successful in refinancing the debt service into one lower
interest loan. This consolidated refinancing has saved almost $100,000
each year ever since, and the Authority is now on a strong financial
footing.
Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, join with me in recognizing a
distinguished West Virginian whose volunteer commitment is ongoing, and
whose energy is so inspiring. It is a great honor to present to you
tonight, the Volunteer of the Year for 2004, the chairman of a solid
waste authority comprising Grant, Hampshire, Hardy, Mineral and
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