Presentation Speech for Christy Hall-Scheufele and Rich Livermore, Glide First Citizen 2018
Presented by John Livingston Glide First Citizen 1999

Presentation Speech for Christy Hall-Scheufele, Glide First Citizen 2018

speech given by John Livingston, Glide First Citizen 1999

Earlier this evening, when Dianne introduced our First Citizens, one group was those who have served on boards. Board jobs require going to lots of meetings, reading lots of paperwork, responding to lots of citizen complaints, but do not come with lots of kudos.

Our first honoree keeps stepping up for these thankless jobs time after time. Since 2015, she has been serving on the fire district board, currently holding the office of treasurer, and on the sewer board, where she is secretary-treasurer. From 2007 until 2011, she was on the board of the Bar L Ranch road district, serving as secretary.

Those three boards represent lots of minutes, letters, financial reports, and budgets. In addition, she wrote grant applications when the road district was upgrading the road. And because she is a paralegal, she has wide legal knowledge, so she often researches questions before the boards regarding laws and regulations.

Before being elected to these district offices, she was active with the Glide Community Club. She hadn’t lived in Glide very long when she began serving on its board as secretary-treasurer. From 2004 until 2007, the club was reorganizing, so in addition to the normal work of minutes and financial reports, she helped rewrite bylaws, organized elections, and managed communications with the Oregon attorney general’s office.

Perhaps one of her most significant contributions to the GCC was chasing down everything involved with getting 501c3 non-profit status from the IRS. She did a lot of research, paperwork, and follow-up communications. Because of that non-profit status, the club has received grants totaling tens of thousands of dollars. The building was in pretty bad shape back then, and it has been renewed from the foundation to the roof in order to serve this community for many more years.

She helped revitalize this First Citizen program, and has helped organize it every year since 2006. She also helped restart the scholarship program, and from 2007 through 2015 served on the scholarship committee. A lot of the funding for those scholarships comes from the kitchen at the wildflower show. Ever since 2008, she has worked the kitchen the whole weekend of the show.

A unique contribution to this community is her newspaper, which she has published twice a month since 2008. Colliding River News keeps the community informed about local events, senior center lunch menus, meetings of all those boards plus groups like AA and TOPS, articles about local history, and many other items of interest to our community. The quarter for an issue can’t possibly cover her expenses and time, so it is a labor of love she’s been doing for about 250 issues so far. By collecting and sharing information, she helps bring our community together.

She is always smiling and good-humored. She makes people feel welcomed, whether greeting First Citizens at the door, putting together a sandwich at the wildflower show kitchen, helping with the Letter Carriers’ canned food drive, or reading the minutes at a board meeting. To be a good secretary and treasurer, to research legal issues and apply for non-profit status, you have to pay attention to detail, which she does. Have you ever noticed that the chairs at these tables are all color-coordinated – blue together, brown together, orange at the back of the room? That’s her attention to detail!

She represents what a true volunteer is – one of those people willing to step up and do what needs to be done, often in the background, often putting in many hours of work at home. She likes to be quietly behind the scenes, behind the paperwork, at the back of the room. But tonight we’re going to pull her to the front to acknowledge how much she does for this community and how important that work is.

Please join me in thanking and honoring Christy Hall-Scheufele as Glide First Citizen 2018!

Presentation Speech for Rich Livermore, Glide First Citizen 2018

speech given by John Livingston, Glide First Citizen 1999

In 1981, when I was athletic director, a young guy from the Seattle area was hired to be the athletic trainer and P.E. coordinator for the school district. Over the next 26 years, he coached, counseled, directed, and supported students in all grades from elementary to high school. He also taught health and organized the Health Careers class, which has started many students toward careers in the health industry.

As trainer, he brought his knowledge of athletic injuries to the fire department, where he helped train EMTs. He brought in real-time injuries for discussion and evaluation, and live players for the EMTs to practice their skills – removing helmets, moving injured players, and packaging them for transport.

In 2002, five years before he retired, he became president of the Booster Club. So after retirement, he kept right on working for the kids. Under his leadership, the Booster Club has produced many, many projects for the district and the kids. Here’s a short list –

And the current project, the softball dressing room. He has gotten bids, permits, grants, donations, and laborers to make this project happen. It is still a "work in process," but it will be usable for the coming softball season.

The Booster Club also does projects that benefit non-athletes. Band instruments. Landscaping. The high school reader board. High school banners. The new middle school courtyard.

Just since 2012, the Booster Club has donated over $95,000 to the school district.

That’s a lot of dough. That takes a lot of fundraising. And he is hands-on with every aspect of that fundraising. At home football games, he sets up the BBQ area, cooks hamburgers, visits with customers, and keeps the fire going. When it’s time for the holiday wreath sale, he cuts the boughs, then helps assemble and deliver the wreaths. For years he ran the annual rummage and plant sale, picking up donations of stuff, sorting it, getting nursery plants, lining up workers, setting up, and cleaning up when it was all over. And the year-round effort, the bottle and can recycle. His yard is full of cans and bottles, and along with helpers he has recruited, he sorts them and takes them to be recycled. Just collecting cans has netted the Booster Club about $5000 a year.

You don’t get this much done without being organized and dedicated. When something needs to be done, he’s there to do it, or he’ll find the resources and personnel to get it done. You don’t get this much done without being the kind of person who can work with people. He always treats people the way they’d want to be treated, human to human. Kids and adults both like and respect him. And he really cares about the kids in our community.

Here’s a long-kept secret. Many years ago, when it came time for the Boy Scouts’ annual holiday food and gift box program, he anonymously donated shoes for each child in the program. A brand new pair of shoes, in its box, for every kid. Twenty-something years later, the statue of limitations for that anonymity has run out!

In his 37 years in Glide, he has made a tremendous difference for hundreds of youth. He continues to work on projects that not only provide resources for Glide’s students, but also leave lasting changes to benefit our children for years into the future.

Please join me in thanking and honoring Rich Livermore, Glide First Citizen 2018!