Might be picking up trash along the highway. Might be maintaining the landscaping around this building. Might be changing the reader board sign. Inside, might be serving seniors lunch 3 days a week. On a Friday evening, will be helping run Bingo, raising funds for the scholarships we just awarded and for maintaining and improving the building. Long after everyone else has left the senior lunch, Bingo, or any other event, this person will still be here, scrubbing, sweeping, mopping.

On a weekend, might be deep cleaning the building: washing windows, stripping and resealing the linoleum. Might be putting felt pads on the legs of all the chairs so they won’t scratch this beautiful floor. Rebuilding and painting the rotting side porch and stairs. Helping with the annex clean-up. Doing endless thankless jobs that most people don’t notice, but which save money that can go toward scholarships or children’s parties and which make this building, a hub of our community, look better, feel better, last longer, and be a place where people want to come.

Every Christmas, this honoree has put on a free dinner for the community. Can you imagine shopping and cooking – not knowing how many people will come -- decorating, serving, washing dishes, and cleaning – and giving up your entire Christmas day to do it? All that’s asked in return is that people come and enjoy spending time with their neighbors. Nothing is charged, and any donations are put towards the next year’s dinner.

The list of things done for this community goes on and on. Serving as an officer of the community club. Helping put on the annual Memorial Day service. Giving people rides into town for appointments. Purchasing and installing the plaque for the Kitty memorial by the front steps. Every Thursday night, guiding and mentoring young people in the AWANA group. The church minister says he can ask anything, and the task will be done.

If this sounds like far too much work for any one person to do, it is. This is a team – one of the hardest-working teams in Glide. But they make individual contributions as well. He is serving as vice-president of the community club and also on the board of the sewer district. She is serving her third year as treasurer of the community club. She was willing to step into the job at a time when the bookkeeping needed TLC, and devoted long hours at first to help reestablish financial systems. She continues to spend many hours paying the bills, keeping the books, preparing reports, and going to town to make deposits and buy supplies.

He makes popcorn at Bingo; she runs the concessions and handles all the money. She has planted, weeded, and watered around this building, and is responsible for how beautiful the entryway looked all last summer with potted plants. He painted the new reader board posts and the flagpole, and operates a mean weed-eater. He serves on the steering committee for the Memorial Day service; she bakes cookies and works in the kitchen.

In the dozen years this couple has lived in Glide, they have truly made it a better place. We are fortunate to have such giving people living among us. Please join me in thanking and honoring Helen Scott and Donal Scott, Glide’s First Citizens for 2014!