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Thursday, August 24, 2017

Full Text of the Awards Ceremony, given at 2017 Appreciation Dinner,
as Delivered by Host Bill Schaefer

This is the complete text, unedited, of the 2017 Awards Ceremony for the Silent Heroes Awards:

WELCOME EVERYONE and thank you for coming to the third annual Silver Lake Institute Appreciation Dinner. On behalf of the Board of Trustees I would like to recognize each and every one of you and also those who couldn’t make it for your volunteer efforts in contributing to our community. This dinner is just a small way to say thank you for all you do in making SLI a special place.  Kathy and I continue to feel blessed to have a second home here and feel a part of this unique place.

At this time, I would like to ask the members of the Board of Trustees who are present to please stand and be recognized. Absent is Kevin Colburn, Bob Cook, Julie Hoffner and Sharon Pratt. These board members are volunteers who donate their time in helping to manage all aspects of the Institute and I would like to take a moment to thank them.

I would like to recognize Sue Russell, Director of the Asbury Retreat Center and her staff for hosting this dinner and for their continued friendship with SLI. It is an absolute pleasure working with you on projects such as SLE.

We will have a short program at the end of dinner, but for now we would like you to enjoy yourselves and we will start dinner with a prayer from our chaplain, Rev Greg Franklin.

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In this first part of the program, I would like to recognize our former trustees to thank them for their service.  Craig Bateman and Suzanne Bristow though no longer on the Board,  continue to do a tremendous amount of behind the scenes work and we want them to know how much we appreciate them.

The next part of the program is something I started last year and I hope it becomes a long standing tradition along with this dinner. Throughout the years there have been many people on the institute who have made extraordinary contributions to SLI. In their own quiet ways, without being noticed, they have preserved a piece of SLI history. Their dedication to SLI has for the most part, gone unnoticed. Last year we brought 4 members of the institute out of the shadows to receive the  Silent Hero Award. They were Roger Covall, Craig Bateman, Bob Murphy and Brad Hennig.
(applause)
This year four more people were nominated by various people in the community to be recognized for their contributions.

Our first Silent Hero has been a Silver Laker for almost 30 years. In 1988 he brought his family to Silver Lake as a place for a retreat. Over the years, he found time to work on the family cottage, relax in the lake atmosphere and all that it had to offer, and enjoy sitting on the porch swing watching the beautiful Silver Lake sunsets. At some point he chose to get involved with the Institute Board of Trustees and was a board member for many many years. He also took a very special interest in and dedicated many hours of personal time in researching and recording the history of Silver Lake Institute so it could be preserved for future generations.

Even though he has not been able to be at the lake over the last few years he still cherishes the time  spent here. He is also pleased to know that his son and his son’s family have found the Silver Lake Institute to be a place to call home away from home. Rodney’s desire is for his family and friends to find this haven of work and rest as a blessing as much as he has felt blessed by Silver Lake Institute.

Rodney Jones,  please come forward to receive your Silent Hero Award from the SLI Board of Trustees.

(read the plaque)

Our second recipient did preliminary research along with others and was a force in the application of the institute to be placed in the National Register of Historic Places. This took persistence and an enormous amount of time and energy resulting in the Silver Lake Institute being designated the award in 1985.

In addition, this person has been a long standing member of the worship committee. She along with her husband have organized, provided, and served the coffee hour refreshments after every summer Sunday service for over a decade.

She has played an integral part in our annual memorial services and continues to personally contact each family who has lost a loved one.
Most recently she organized the Chicken BBQ as a fundraiser for the Epworth roof raising over $3000. Joan Maddison, will you come forward please.

(read the plaque)

Our next recipient, Julie Hoffner, could not be here tonight. I am going to read to you her Silent hero description but please keep this a secret as we are going to award this to her tomorrow night at the Dessert on the Dock. We would love it if you could join us there but we really do not want her to know anything until then..Greg, please do not mention anything on the blog.

Julie has been a Silver Laker for over 60 years. She has been involved in our worship services for over 45 years as well as being the accompianist for the majority of the services.  She has served on the SLI Board of Trustees for over 14 years, 12 of those years she has been the program committee chair.

In this position, she has worked year round to line up musical,cultural, educational, and spiritual activities for our summer enjoyment. You may not know this, but she works through the winter filing grant proposals to the Arts Council to help fund the costs of all these programs. As part of the committee, she is there early to set up and greet the perfomers, and stays late to close up our facilities. On top of all of this, she has found time to work on the SLE committee for the past 4 years often going above and beyond what is expected.

(read the plaque)…remind the audience…shhhhhh.

Last but not least, this young man was locally born, the oldest in the family. He loved his country life, camping and playing basketball in barns. Everyday was a new adventure.

He grew up, went a way to college, married, and had two beautiful children. Years later, life lead him to meet Linda Bergstrom and they married in 1998. Though he did not spend his youth at Silver Lake, he fell in love with the lake and became a true Silver Laker. He refers to his life here as “coming home” He loves to attend the Thursday Epworth programs and he can be spotted at dessert on the dock. He is a big supporter of our beautiful historical buildings and our Sunday services at Epworth Hall,

He has served as a member of the Board of Trustees for at least 9 years and as past president for 5 years and vice president for 2 years.

He believes that this unique community needs to be preserved and honored. To that end, he spends hours encouraging others to participate and join committees.

In 2013, when the time came for the SLI to separate from the Upper New York Conference, he worked with the support of his fellow trustees and spent countless months in conversation, research, and presentation with our attorney to protect and defend this special piece of land. His efforts culminated in a legal separation in the Wyoming County Courts and the Silver Lake Institute was established as our own entity. He continued to work tirelessly to secure our 501C3 status with the IRS which was granted in June, 2017.

Pete is one of a long line of trustees who has lived by the words written in 1903, “it is consecrated by the prayers, toil, and sacrifices of the fathers. It is their legacy to us.”

Pete Mairs, will you please come forward.

(read plaque)

Despite all of you sitting here and about 20 more who could not attend,  we need to get even more people involved to keep SLI going and to keep our not for profit status viable. Please  encourage your SLI friends and neighbors to get involved and support our programs.  We love having new people join committees, host Saturday morning cafes, and participate in our activities.

And finally,
As I said earlier there are many Silent Heros that are walking among us who in some way have made a significant impact on our Institute.  Tonight we recognized four more of them. My hope is to continue to recognize  Silent Heroes in the years to come. If you know  people who have had an impact on our institute, please let me know so that we may recognize them in the years to come.

Again, Thank you to all of you for all that you do. We hope you have enjoyed your dinner,  and have a good night.





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