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.
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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