Rachael Smith-Tryon

(citation read by Councillor Mark Schjerning.

Rachael Smith-Tryon was a student at Harrowsmith Public School, and now that her own children attend the school she has become an active member of the parent council, with responsibility for communications. Over the years she has also helped out with Family Day, Canada Day and Movie Nights in the Park.

Over the past four years, she has been volunteering with Girl Guides of Canada. Jewel (her Guider name) has been making a difference in the lives of girls aged five and six on a weekly basis, providing youth-centered programming; encouraging girls to learn, make new friends, grow and discover the very best in themselves.

She works full-time and has three children, but nonetheless four years ago she began volunteering with the Frontenac Soccer Association. She was a coach and a convenor and since 2011 she has been a member of the executive and has serves as registrar, a crucial role.

She spends countless hours prior to the season start updating the website, working on the player registration portal, trouble-shooting the system when parents are unable to register, answering the soccer hotline for questions about the upcoming season, and facilitating registration via mail when needed. As the season gets underway, Rachael remains busy exporting registration files and assisting the convenors with player placements.

She also updates the association's website and is the first point of contact for the association.

Rachael is a committed volunteer. As a result of her dedication hundreds of children are able to play soccer every summer within their own community through the Frontenac Soccer Association.

Eileen Sleeth (citation read by Councillor Norm Roberts)

Eileen Sleeth made the move from Sunbury to Battersea to marry the love of her life and live on a working farm many years ago and she has never looked back. In 2014 her family received the Bank of Montreal Farm Family of the Year Award for 2014 in recognition of her family’s involvement in the community.

Over the years she has been deeply involved with Battersea United Church and the organization of all of its fundraising dinners and various functions and events, including the baking of hundreds of dozens of shortbread cookies, an event originally started by Isabel Freeman.

She drove bus for 40 years and has volunteered for many years at the Battersea Pumpkin Festival. She was Apple Pie Queen at the festival for her baking skills. For the last 12 years, Eileen has been secretary for the Holstein Federation.

Over the years she has made many friends in the community. The love and respect they feel for her was evident by the many cards, well wishes and flowers she received during her recent illness.

Linda Bates

(Citation read by Councillor John McDougall)

Linda Bates moved to Verona in 1999 and has been moving ever since. She joined the Verona Community Association (VCA) in 2004 and has enthusiastically contributed to the success of the Cattail Festival. She has served on the sponsorship team; has been manager of Cameron’s Bog, the vendor village, and children’s activities; and managed the live on-stage entertainment. She is a very active committee member in the re-designed Verona Car Show and is currently the VCA vice-president. Linda has been a member of the Boy Scouts for over 41 years and is a guild member. She participated in the Haiti project over a five-year period, leading the coordination of repairs to a school and supplying the students with a multitude of donated educational supplies. She has been involved in scouting for decades and is a member of the Sydenham Women's Institute where she is currently the past president. She has also devoted many hours to Southern Frontenac Community Services and is now employed in the Diner's Club and Meals on Wheels programs.

During the Frontenac County 150th anniversary weekend celebrations she managed the vendor village at Harrowsmith Centennial Park. Her latest volunteer commitment is as a member of the Seniors Law Enforcement Together (SALT) Committee with the Frontenac detachment.

Citation for Wilma Kenny

(read by Councillor Ross Sutherland)

Wilma Kenny is one of the key organizers in the village of Sydenham, having been involved in the establishment of at least three major local institutions.

She was born and raised in Sydenham and returned after stints out west and up north.

Wilma played an instrumental role in the creation of Sydenham’s Meadowbrook and Maple Ridge apartments, some of the best seniors' housing in Canada!

As a member of the Grace Arts Committee, she was a driving force in the transformation of the old United Church into the Grace Centre, an invaluable community space, and attaching it to the Southern Frontenac Community Services. As an ongoing member of the Arts Committee she helps local artists display their work. Wilma’s quilts, depicting the heritage of South Frontenac, are on permanent display in the center.

For many years, Wilma was the editor of the Triangle, a local community newspaper, and she is a mainstay of the South Frontenac writers' group.

As a volunteer representative of the Kingston Frontenac Library Board, where she held the vice-chair post for a number of years, she helped bring a new library to Sydenham.

Wilma has been involved in many other activities to improve South Frontenac, including writing, researching and helping produce a historical walking guide of Sydenham, which saw 10,000 leaflets circulated and still attracts interest.

(Editor's note – Wilma also covers South Frontenac Council for the Frontenac News)

Northern Frontenac Community Services thanked over 100 of its volunteers at an annual dinner at St. James Catholic Church hall in Sharbot Lake on Monday night, April 11.

After everyone had enjoyed a dinner of chicken breast, peas and new potatoes, followed by cake, it was time for the main event, the announcement of the winner of the Volunteer of the Year award. When Gail Young, the co-ordinator of Frontenac Transportation Services (FTS), came to the microphone at the front of the hall, it was a tip the audience that the winner this year would be one of the FTS drivers, who collectively drove over 600,000 kilometres this past year.

Marion Barker is a dedicated driver who has been with FTS for many years and makes herself available Monday to Friday each week.

“About two years ago she tried to take Fridays off, but so many clients ask for her by name and she can't say no to them,” said Gail Young.

Young also said that Marion Barker is able to juggle different ongoing trips at one time.

“She brings client A to one location, and instead of, waiting, collects client B and brings them where they have to go; then heads back to bring client A home before returning to pick up client B. She has as many as four clients on the go at one time like that. I only knew how complicated it all was when she got sick one day and I had to replace her. The new driver just looked at the paperwork and shook their head,” said Young.

For her part, Marion Barker said she enjoys the atmosphere at FTS and NFCS.

After the award ceremony, the father and son duo of Gilbert and Justin Riddell played together in public for the first time. They played a selection of their favorite Waylon Jennings and George Jones tunes, to the delight of all the “outlaw country” fans in the room. They also marked the death of Merle Haggard this past weekend by performing a number of songs from his extensive catalogue.

Gib plays often with the Old Habits, but hopefully the Gib and Justin show will return sometime soon. Their harmonies are too good to be heard only in the Riddell family kitchen.

Addington Highlands Township hosted their annual Christmas party in Flinton on November 28, and Reeve Henry Hogg presented two awards. The “Outstanding Volunteer” award was given to Ernie and Cathy Ballar. Ernie and his daughter, June Thompson, accepted the award on behalf of Cathy, who sadly passed away on September 19, 2015. The Outstanding Volunteer award is presented to individuals who make a significant voluntary contribution to benefit the community in the areas of social or economic growth. The “Outstanding Business” award was presented to Hook’s Building Centre. The Outstanding Business is presented to acknowledge businesses that achieve excellence while meeting the needs of residents and visitors.

It has been a strange week here at the News. A Tuesday power failure certainly put a kink in the works. Seven hours sitting around waiting for the power to come back so we could put the paper together was not exactly part of our plan.

We attempted to fire up two different generators. The first one ran smoothly but did not put any power out. The second one certainly put out power, but just as the computers began kicking into life, one of the surge protector power bars popped, and seconds later sparks started flying out of another one. We shut the beast down and decided to wait it out.

Some other odd things happened as well, nothing major, just enough to throw us a little off kilter as we carried out the normally straightforward tasks of putting out a newspaper.

I think I know the reason why. Monday was the last day that Dale Ham came in to help with typing, proof-reading and formatting.

Dale has been coming in on most Mondays since about 1995. She was here before all of the rest of us. But now that Dale and her husband Tom, a dedicated community volunteer in his own right, are moving to Ottawa, she will no longer be coming in on Mondays.

Dale said that when she first applied to be a volunteer with the North Frontenac News, she got all dressed up for an interview with Linda Rush, who was then the executive director of North Frontenac Community Services, which ran the paper as a not-for-profit enterprise for almost 30 years.

“I quickly learned that there was no need to dress up to work at the News,” Dale said this week, a situation that she added has not changed since the paper became a private, for profit enterprise in the summer of 2000.

When I started at the News 18 months later, Dale was driving her friend and fellow retired teacher, Doreen Howes, in to volunteer at the paper each Monday. They pored over the columns, gossiping some of the time but considering the fine points of grammar most of the time.

The first Monday when Dale came in after Doreen died a few years later was certainly a poignant day, more difficult than it will be next Monday when Dale is not here. That's because we know that Dale and Tom, after spending over 20 years making Central Frontenac a more livable community, are looking forward to enjoying life in the City of Ottawa. They are leaving on their own terms, with no regrets.

They arrived as young seniors in Parham in the early 1990s, built a home, and each took on their own volunteer roles with a long list of groups and organisations, including: the Festival of Trees, Northern Frontenac Community Services, Community Living, and Rural Legal Services. They played bridge together on Fridays and once a month Dale went to the book club she founded. When they weren't volunteering they were entertaining grandchildren, visiting with friends or just enjoying life on the lake. Life has been an adventure for them in this community and they are looking forward to the next adventure, this time with no property maintenance concerns to worry about.

We will miss Dale's guidance, and the work she does on the paper, and we will miss the interesting conversations during breaks from work even more. Over years you learn how someone thinks, the specific ways they react to things that happen in the community and in the world at large. You get used to them being around.

We'll certainly miss Dale and Tom in our community and at the News, and we wish them all the best in their new life in Ottawa.

There is good news and bad news these days for Frontenac Transportation Services (FTS), which provides rides to medical and other appointments for residents of North, Central and South Frontenac from its base in Sharbot Lake.

The good news is that the agency, which is managed by Northern Frontenac Community Services (NFCS) and provides rides for clients of Southern Frontenac Community Services (SFCS) as well, has improved its reach all over the County (with the exception of Frontenac Islands) and has seen ridership increase throughout.

“Our ridership has increased everywhere, and one of the biggest increases has been in the area of medical rides for seniors in the former Storrington District of South Frontenac,” said Gail Young, the co-ordinator of FTS.

The bad news is that this has put a burden on its corps of volunteer drivers. “We need more drivers throughout the county, but the need is more pronounced in South Frontenac and it is acute in the Inverary area,” she said.

Young added that volunteer drivers all receive training when they sign on to FTS and they also receive compensation in the form of mileage to cover fuel costs.

“We are looking for people who are willing to donate the gift of time, and we don't want them to have to go out of pocket in order to volunteer,” said Young. “Anyone who is interested can give us a call and we can go over all the details. It can be a very rewarding way to volunteer because transportation is one of the most important factors for people who really want to remain living in their own communities as they age or face medical or other challenges. Many of our drivers have been with us for years and have developed strong bonds with our clients.”

The precursor to FTS, Rural Routes Transportation Services, was set up by Northern Frontenac Community Services to help residents from Verona north to access medical and social services. In 2009, with the promise of stable funding of $80,000 annually from Frontenac County to cover administrative costs, a memorandum of understanding was signed between Northern and Southern Frontenac Community Services (SFCS) in order to establish FTS. FTS now serves clients from both agencies and also provides rides for the Limestone District School Board, Ontario Disability Support Program, Ontario Works, Northern Connections, and Community Living (North Frontenac).

For further information or to volunteer, call 877-279-2044

The sounds of the Arden Glee Club at the Oso Hall on a week day in late June can only mean one thing: it is the day of the Seniors of the Year presentation. This was the 17th edition of the ceremony, and the Glee Club has performed in at least the last 10.

This year, as has also happened in the past, one of their members was among the honourees.

The first person recognized was Reverend Jean Brown from Henderson. Jean is well known locally for a number of reasons. She is an ordained United Church minister who originally came to the area to serve as minister in Arden, Mountain Grove and Henderson between 1992 and 1999. Later she served congregations elsewhere in Eastern Ontario from her home base in Henderson, where she met Alan Gurnsey. The couple married in 1999.

More recently she has been filling in where needed at local churches and is currently serving at Sharbot Lake, Maberly and Parham United Churches.

As Frontenac News readers are aware, Jean keeps the community informed as our Henderson reporter and always contributes a seasonal recipe or two from Manitoulin Island, where she was born and still visits each summer. She may be best known however, for her love of the colour pink, which has adorned her clothes, vehicles and even her home. Her license plate reads “PINKJEAN”.

As Mayor Frances Smith said in presenting the award, “Jean is a real 'hoot'”.

Bill Powers, the Glee Club member among this year's recipients, moved to Mountain Grove 10 years ago with his wife Sylvia. They both joined the Glee Club, which is a major commitment, and Bill joined the fire department, where he brings the kind of background in emergency services that is hard to come by. In his previous life in Ottawa, where he taught high school, Powers joined a volunteer organization called International Rescue. They have developed expertise in dealing with global scale natural disasters that has led to them being called in first when a disaster strikes anywhere around the world. Through International Rescue, Powers provided assistance in Galveston, Texas after Hurricane Mitch, and in Gulfport, Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. He was called to Indonesia after the tsunami, and most recently to Haiti after the devastating earthquake. By that time he was 70.

As Councillor Victor Heese said in presenting the award, “There is no retirement for Bill Powers.”

In presenting the award to Ron Hollywood, Councilor Bill MacDonald deferred to his neighbour Skip Moyse.

“Ron is as old as dirt,” Moyse said to start, but then grew more complimentary as he went along. He described how Hollywood is a tireless volunteer for the Lions Club, the Railway Heritage Society, and the Silver Lake Pow Wow, which granted him their highest honour, the Eagle Feather, two years ago.

“Ron is the quiet guy you always see setting up or tearing down at just about any community event,” said Skip Moyse, who added that perhaps Ron's most enduring volunteer work is done informally. He has been known to cut, split and deliver wood to neighbours who need it, or help fix a roof, or shovel a driveway.

“I cannot think of a more unassuming person who has done so much for so many,” Moyse concluded.

Finally, it was the turn of Hinchinbrooke Councilor Brent Cameron to present the award to a couple he has known all his life, Joan and Roy Shepherd. Again, as readers will know, the Shepherds were the founders and driving forces behind the monthly Piccadilly Jam sessions, which over the years have become known as the “Bedford Jam” at the Glendower Hall.

“These weekend sessions not only showcase local talent and provide an opportunity to share and collaborate, but they offer audience members with a cultural gift. They provide us with performances in a genre that connects us with our rural traditions and heritage,” said Cameron.

The Shepherds have successfully transitioned a new couple, the Card's, to the helm of the Bedfod Jam, ensuring its continued success.

This years' recipients of Volunteer of the Year honours were handed out at a ceremony and reception at the Township Hall in Sydenham. This year;s deserving recipients are Joan Cameron, Debbie Lingen, and Barb Stewart.

Joan Cameron is, among other things, the women behind the Grace Centre, which has filled a niche in Sydenham ever since it opended 4 years ago.

She joined the Board of Southern Frontenac Community Services in 2009, quickly became chair, and soon after started pushing for the agency to take over Grace United Church and turn into program space as well as an Arts Centre.

While there was initial reluctance the board and staff soon caught the bug of her enthusiasm and the project got underway.

Joan cleaned every nook and cranny of the building’ cleaning out cupboards, painting, working with contractors to complete tasks on schedule. She also coordinated getting the old bell from the church refinished in order to preserve the heritage of the building.

In addition to the building she has helped increase SFCS' footprint in the community, both with the senior and low income populations that they serve.

Debbie Lingen moved to Verona with her husband Roy in 2006, and quickly became an active member of the Verona Community Association, and is now the Association's President. She is also the Chair of the annual Cattail Festival in August.

Debbie spear-headed and chairs the newly created “Christmas in the Village”, a celebration that replaced the Christmas Tree Lighting. It is held at the Verona Lions Centre and this event continues to be a tremendous success. Activities such as decorating a Christmas tree in the pavilion, family games, chili and hot dog supper and live entertainment are all free for the patrons.

As our readers know well, Debbie also writes the Verona column for the News. She spends hours tracking down newsworthy items and events in the hamlet of Verona and writes interesting articles to keep our community residents informed.

Barbara Stewart has been the driving force of the Portland District and Area Heritage Society as preparations are underway for the opening of the Township’s new museum in Hartington on August 15.

Barb Stewart, the President of the Society, has coordinated the planning for the opening exhibition as well as the design and construction of the interior museum space. All this has been managed over and above her leadership role in the Society’s ongoing fund raising and community outreach activities and responsibilities.

Barb is a twenty-year volunteer and leading member of the Verona Cattail Festival, a volunteer with the Society at the Verona Lions Garlic Festival, the Harrowsmith Canada Day celebrations and a cherished member of the Verona Trinity United Church Session and congregation.

Barb and her late husband Charlie were part of everything that made South Frontenac an amazing place to live.

June is Seniors' month and each year Central Frontenac Township honours seniors from each of the four township wards who have made contributions to the life of the township.

This year the honorees were: from Kennebec Ward, Tom Hughes; from Olden, Nancy Thompson; from Oso, Alex MacLeod; and Hinchinbrooke, Dawn and Dave Hansen.

Councilors from each of the wards made the presentations.

Tom Hughes

Tom Hughes was born on a farm on the Clark Road in 1929. and his family moved to Arden when he was six. He attended public school in Arden and high school in Tweed (Sharbot Lake High School opened after his senior year) He went to work for CP in 1949 and remained with the railroad for over 40 years. In the 1950s he also worked for the family bakery, making deliveries to Tamworth, where he met his wife June. They were married in 1956 and have one daughter and four grandchildren. After working in Lavant Station for CP, Tom was transferred to Toronto, then London, and eventually back to Toronto.

The family moved back to Arden when Tom retired in 1993. Since then he has been active with the local Masonic lodge, is a steward with the Arden United Church, and has been a member of the Arden Glee Club since 1995. When not busy with family or volunteer pursuits, Tom likes to hunt and fish.

Nancy Thompson

Nancy Thompson joins her aunt and mother Ada and Beth Macdonald, both of whom were named Senior of the Year over a decade ago, as recipients of the award.

She was a long-time employee of both Olden townsip and Central Frontenac. She is the mother of three children, and has 11 grandchildren and one great grandchild.

She is active in the United Church in Mountain Grove and is a dedicated volunteer for a number of causes. As Councilor John Purdon said, Nancy prefers to work behind the scenes, working in the kitchen at events where food is being served, helping to set up and clean up the hall rather than seeking recognition for her work.

“In fact I expect she would rather be putting out the food than getting up in front of everyone today,” he said.

Nonetheless, Nancy accepted her award graciously, saying “I really appreciate this”.

Alex MacLeod

Alex MacLeod first became associated with Central Frontenac as a renter of a cottage on Sharbot Lake. He eventually retired after 39 years with Bell Canada and bought and renovated one of the cottages he had earlier rented. He was an active volunteer even as a seasonal resident, as a founder of the Sharbot Lake Property Owners Association in 1973. Since becoming a permanent resident he has been very active with the local Lions Club and is a member of the Community Advisory Board to the Sharbot Lake Family Health Team.”

“I am surprised and very appreciative to be receiving this honour,” he said.

Dawn and Dave Hansen

Dawn and Dave were high school sweethearts, and in the words of Councilor Heather Fox, “Dawn didn’t know enough to walk away so they got married”. Dawn worked as an elementary school teacher and Dave owned and ran the Parham Ambulance Service. The couple have a daughter and two grandchildren and live in Tichborne. Dawn was one of the early and long standing volunteers with the North Frontenac Little Theatre and both Dawn and Dave are inextricably linked to the Hinchinbrooke fire department and the Sharbot Lake & District Lions Club. They have both served numerous roles locally and at the regional level with the Lions. They are fixtures in the local community, working as a team and individually on numerous projects.