PORT ANGELES — Five people who have made outstanding community accomplishments were honored Friday with the Clallam County Community Service Award for 2004.
Dr. Roger Oakes, June Robinson, John and Lelah Singhose and Cheryl Baumann received the award during a luncheon attended by more than 120 people at The Tempest youth center.
The Community Service Award recognizes “dedication, sacrifices and accomplishments of local people who do extraordinary things for their neighbors, their community or the environment.”
This is the 24th year of the awards, begun by the Peninsula Daily News and now co-sponsored by Soroptimist International of Port Angeles-Noon Club.
This year’s winners were selected from more than 30 nominations made by individuals, clubs, churches, businesses and other organizations.
A panel of judges, including prior winners, picked the five honorees.
John Brewer, editor and publisher of the Peninsula Daily News and one of the judges, called the winners “role models for all of us . . . inspirational in both spirit and deed, heroic in the untrivialized sense of the word.
“They deserve analysis and imitation . . . not only because they’ve aspired and dreamed, but because our local heroes’ achievements are within our own reach.
“They show us that all of us can build community, which may be the most neglected need in American life today.”
Brewer added, “For your many accomplishments, the Peninsula Daily News and the Soroptimists applaud you, the community salutes you — and we all thank you for your continued service to others.”
Peninsula Daily News also sponsors the Jefferson County Community Service Awards.
The Jefferson awards will be made later this year.
Roger Oakes
“I think it’s more about community and what’s important for all of us, so that’s why this award is so nice,” Oakes said after receiving his framed award certificate.
Oakes, who began his practice as a physician in Port Angeles 30 years ago, has been active in United Way fund-raising, the Hurricane Ridge Ski Team and Hurricane Ridge Public Development Authority, several Olympic Medical Center committees and other volunteer groups, and leads hiking excursions into Olympic National Park.
“He gives his personal best to everyone,” Nola Grier of United Way of Clallam County wrote in her nomination letter.
“Dr. Roger Oakes is an exceptional person who quietly goes about doing what he can to improve our community.”
June Robinson
A Sequim resident, Robinson is an avid historian who claims she can’t say “no” to anything involving history.
She has been active in documenting Clallam County’s past and in supporting education.
She served four terms as president of the Clallam County Historical Society, is a Sequim School Board member, chairs the Sequim Parks Advisory Board, writes regular history columns for the Peninsula Daily News, has authored several books and pamphlets, has chaired the Clallam County Heritage Advisory Board for 10 years, tutors students regularly and is involved in several other organizations.
“She’s a real top example of a real volunteer for this area,” said Port of Port Angeles Commissioner Leonard Beil, a judge and past winner of the award.
John and Lelah Singhose
Longtime Joyce-area community leaders, the Singhoses have been active in the Crescent School PTA, the Crescent and Pomona granges, the Clallam County Fair, have co-chaired the Joyce Daze Parade Committee since 1982, cut firewood for the elderly and boast a long list of other examples of community involvement.
In 1999, they were named Grangers of the Year, and they are lifetime members of the VFW in Forks.
“If a life is not important except for the impact it has on other lives, then from the contributions made by these two people and their impact on this community, we consider John and Lelah Singhose perfect candidates for the Community Service Award,” wrote Fred and Kathleen Walton in their nomination letter.
“This is a great honor for John and I,” Lelah Singhose said Friday.
Cheryl Baumann
Executive director of Clallam County Pro Bono Lawyers, Baumann is known throughout the legal community for her efforts to assist low-income people with family law matters, evictions, bankruptcies and other civil legal matters.
The Port Angeles resident is “tireless” in seeking adequate funding for the nonprofit program, recruiting volunteer attorneys and was instrumental in the creation of a courthouse facilitator position in the Clallam County Courthouse who assists individuals representing themselves in complicated court proceedings, wrote the county’s two Superior Court judges, Ken Williams and George L. Wood, in a joint nomination letter.
“In Clallam County, largely because of the efforts of Ms. Baumann, access to justice is not merely an ideal, but is an actuality,” the judges wrote.
