By Charlie Bermant
Peninsula Daily News
PORT TOWNSEND — Voting is now in progress for the public service volunteer who will represent Washington state in the national Jefferson Award competition — and a longtime Port Townsend volunteer is in the running.
Jean Camfield, a founder of a Habitat for Humanity Furniture and More Store resale store and of a scholarship foundation, was tabbed in February as one of the state’s five winners of the Jefferson Award of Washington, which is given for outstanding public service.
On April 13, one of the five will be announced as the person who will represent the state at the national ceremony in June.
The national representative will be announced at the 2011 Washington State Jefferson Awards breakfast from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. at the Space Needle in Seattle.
The winners, who were chosen from a list of nominees by a six-person panel of statewide community leaders, will each receive a commemorative medallion.
Online voting, which began Friday and will continue through this coming Friday, is managed by KING-TV, which administers the contest in Washington state along with the City Club of Seattle.
“I feel more comfortable working in the background,” Camfield said Tuesday as she repaired a chair at Habitat’s Port Townsend store.
“But a vote for me is a vote for Habitat.”
KING-TV prepared a video about each contestant that was shown on “Evening Magazine” and is now viewable online at www.KING5.com.
Only one vote can be cast from each computer or device.
There is no running total of votes cast.
Aside from Camfield, 78, the other statewide award winners are Ahndrea Blue of Seattle, Megan Johnson and Peggy LaPorte, both of Federal Way, and Jim Theofelis of Seattle.
Camfield, a member of the Habitat for Humanity of East Jefferson County board of directors, was one of the founders of the Furniture and More Store.
She also helped create and support the Port Townsend High School Scholarship Foundation in 1976, which has awarded some 500 scholarships to students since.
The national award is comparable to “the Nobel Prize for Public Service,” said City Club spokeswoman Jessica Jones.
The national Jefferson Awards were created in 1972 by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Sen. Robert Taft as a way to recognize outstanding achievement in public service.
They have been awarded in Washington state since 1977.
State awards are provided through a sponsoring agency working with a news outlet.
Camfield, who has lived in Port Townsend for all but 10 of the past 60 years, worked as business manager for the Port Townsend School District for 35 years before retiring in 1999 and becoming involved in volunteer work.
Camfield’s brother, Skookum founder James Westall of Port Townsend, won the statewide Jefferson Award in 1991.
Camfield and Westall are among the three North Olympic Peninsula volunteers who have been given the award in the past 20 years.
Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County founder Rose Crumb of Port Angeles was recognized in 1998.
Other Peninsula recipients of the statewide award have been Joseph De La Cruz of LaPush in 1977, Ronald N. Black of LaPush in 1979, Nell and Herb Bromley of Port Townsend and Gene Kure of Port Angeles in 1981, according to City Club.
To see Camfield’s video, visit http://tinyurl.com/3uow8an.
To cast a vote, visit http://tinyurl.com/3zar7gh.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
