Redcliff Lions seeking Citizen of the Year nominees

By Tim Kalinowski
The Redcliff Lions Club is looking nominees for the community’s annual Citizen of the Year Award. There have been fewer nominations submitted in recent years while there are many deserving in the community. Lions Citizen of Year Committee chair Brian Lowery is hoping to change that this time around.
“We want to make sure that we recognize the people in the community who are doing things, in whatever capacity it is,” states Lowery. “This broad criteria is someone who is involved in volunteering in the community.”
Lowery says the committee looks over applications carefully to see who would be most deserving each year among the nominees.
“There are those of us who sit back in the community and say I want light and power, sewer and water. That’s all we need. Then there are other people who look on the community as a place they are proud to live. They are the ones who look after the baseball diamonds, the Cub Scouts, Library Board, Minor hockey… These people deserve recognition for the work they do, and this is their chance each year to receive it,” explains Lowery.
Fellow committee member Kim Donais smiles as he looks over the list of past nominees, many still fondly remembered.
“There was Alf Dutton in 1983,” says Donais pointing at the name on the page in front of him. “He was a longtime Mayor of Redcliff and heavily involved in the community. The lady who was nominated in 1982, Aggie Millard, there is actually a park named after her. When Aggie was alive, even into her eighties, we used to have some beautiful planters around town. On her own, she took care of those planters.”
“Many alive today might not know what Aggie did for the community,” says Lowery. “By having this list of Citizens of the Year, we can recognize those people in the community who have risen to the challenge in every generation of making Redcliff better.”
Nominations for this year’s Citizen of the Year Award close on March 22. The award will be given out at the Volunteers’ Appreciation night banquet April 15 at the Redcliff Legion hall.
“We want to reach out to all those organizations, boards and various non-profits to get their nominees’ names in,” says Donais. “But you don’t have to be a member of anything, you just have to have someone nominate you.”