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Association of West Virginia Solid Waste Authorities 2004 Volunteer of the Year |
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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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