PORT ANGELES — Donna Buck spends her time helping Clallam County citizens prepare for a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake because it is the “right thing to do,” she said.
That sincere motivation could apply to each of the volunteers who received a 2018 Clallam County Community Service Award.
Six people were recognized Thursday for making a difference in their communities in diverse ways. The awards were bestowed in a ceremony at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Port Angeles.
“We are volunteers, like other people we’ve honored today, because it’s the right thing to do,” said Donna Buck, who shared the award with her husband, former state Rep. Jim Buck.
The Bucks were honored for their work with Joyce Emergency Planning and Preparation, which is helping Joyce and other communities prepare for the magnitude-9.0 Cascadia subduction zone earthquake that scientists say will happen at some point.
Other recipients of the 38th annual Clallam County Community Service Award were:
• John Brewer, whose volunteer efforts began before he retired as the Peninsula Daily News editor and publisher in 2015 and have only increased since.
• Jim Hallett, former Port Angeles mayor whose volunteer contributions have spanned decades.
• Kim Rosales, a Sequim woman who trains service dogs, and whose volunteer efforts include work for the Sequim Irrigation Festival, the Sequim Food Bank and the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula.
• Carol Sinton, whose volunteer work includes cleaning up parks, the Laurel Street stairs and downtown Port Angeles.
The program was begun in 1980 by the PDN and is now co-sponsored by Soroptimist International of Port Angeles-Noon Club.
The ceremony was hosted by PDN Publisher and Sound Publishing Vice President Terry Ward and Port Angeles City Council and Soroptimist member Cherie Kidd.
“This class is an outstanding class of honorees,” Ward told a crowd of about 70 in the church banquet room.
“These folks are everyday people who have found extraordinary ways to give back to the community.”
A blue-ribbon judging committee picked the winners from 17 nominations made by individuals, clubs, churches, businesses and other organizations.
The criteria included longevity of the project, number of people affected, time commitment and whether the candidate “made a lasting contribution to the quality of life in our community,” Kidd said.
Jim Buck won the Community Service Award 17 days after receiving the 2018 Governor’s Volunteer Service Award for disaster preparation and emergency response.
He has delivered a series of well-attended disaster preparedness talks along with Clallam County Fire District No. 3 Assistant Chief Dan Orr and Disaster Planner Blaine Zechenelly.
“It’s all humbling,” Jim Buck said of the recognition.
“I’ve been working on this since 2006. We’ve learned a few things since then, but I think the most important thing that I’ve learned since then is that you don’t do this stuff by yourself.”
Donna Buck, who volunteers with JEPP, local fire districts and community emergency response teams, was credited with producing disaster preparedness programs and brochures.
Thanks to her work, Clallam County had “better materials than the state” at a recent conference in Tacoma, Jim Buck said.
“I think it’s important to recognize the quality that she brings to this,” Jim Buck said.
The Bucks were introduced by Clallam County Commissioners Mark Ozias, Randy Johnson and Bill Peach.
“All three of us are currently taking FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) courses and we are very, very interested — sincerely interested — in following up on the seed that you have planted,” said Peach, one of the judges.
After years of hosting Clallam County Community Service Awards, Brewer received a framed certificate of his own Thursday.
He was honored for his current volunteer work, which includes service with various business and civic organizations, and the “laundry list of things he was involved in prior to his retirement,” said Kathy Estes, executive director of the North Olympic History Center and a judge of the awards.
“His interest in the community and the people he knows is genuine,” Estes said of Brewer.
Brewer was credited with being a champion of Peninsula Home Fund, a joint effort of the PDN and Olympic Community Action Programs. The fund is a safety net for those who need “a hand-up, not a hand-out” in tough times.
Brewer shared stories about people who had benefited from the fund, including a boy who was flunking out of high school until he received a set of glasses.
“The glasses were really the most important thing in his life,” Brewer recalled.
“With the new glasses, as you might imagine, his grades improved. He went on Washington State University, and when I last heard from his grandmother, he was helping guard our country now as an intelligence officer for Homeland Security in Virginia.”
Donations to the annual Home Fund campaign rose to a high of $271,981 under Brewer’s watch in 2014. The fund collected a total of $2.7 million during Brewer’s tenure at the PDN, Executive Editor Leah Leach said.
Kim Rosales became the third member of her family to receive a Clallam County Community Service Award, joining her husband, Stephen Rosales (2011), and father, Bryce Fish (2006). Her award was presented by Peggy Norris, former Community Service Award winner and a judge.
“Many of you know that places like the Boys & Girls Club, and local churches, schools, festivals, they all need volunteers,” Rosales said. “They’re not going to tell you no if you step up.”
Rosales is a preschool teacher who is known for her work with Puppy Pilots with Guide Dogs for the Blind.
“This is a fulltime love affair with a black lab,” Rosales said.
Puppy Pilots volunteers in the last 10-plus years, have raised 30 puppies, nine of which have become guides for blind individuals.
Rosales was involved in the formation of Sequim Family Advocates, which built the soccer fields at Carrie Blake Park with support from the Albert Haller Foundation and other donors.
Sinton has been a leader in Revitalize Port Angeles, a citizen’s group that works to make the community better.
She serves with the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce board, multiple committees and is lead volunteer with the Port Angeles Visitors Center.
“When Carol sees something that needs attention, she is not the kind of person that says ‘Somebody needs to do something about that,’ ” said Lloyd Eisenman, one of the judges, who presented the award to Sinton.
“Carol regards herself as that somebody.”
Sinton led a recent effort to spruce up the Laurel Street stairs in downtown Port Angeles.
“I don’t do any of these things alone,” Sinton said. “There’s nothing I have done without somebody else right there with me, inspiring me, wanting to do more.”
Hallett’s acceptance speech after the presentation by judge Nathan West, was peppered with stories from his long career in public service.
He recalled the first motion he made as a 20-something member of the Port Angeles City Council.
The motion was that Port Angeles “not adopt policies that support the apartheid regime in South Africa,” Hallett said.
About 20 years later, Nontombi Naomi Tutu, daughter of anti-apartheid bishop and Nobel Peace Price winner Desmond Tutu, gave a public address in Port Angeles because the city “stood with us,” Hallett recalled.
“’You said yes to the end of apartheid,’” Hallett quoted Tutu as saying. “‘You were a blessing to us, and I wanted to come from the other side of the world to say thank you.’
“That’s stuck with me.”
Hallett has served on the boards of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula, YMCA, North Olympic Library System, United Way, Harbor Works and others.
Hallett said his life had been “blessed with a series of yesses.”
“Say yes to the opportunity that’s presented to you,” Hallett told the audience. “Seek out those where you can encourage others to say yes.
“When we do that, our community will be the shining star on the hill that will show the rest of the world what it’s like to come together, to live with respect and compassion and caring for our neighbor and to make our community and the place we live and the place we love our own.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
