Six win Clallam County Community Service Award

PORT ANGELES — Six people have been selected as recipients of the 2020 Clallam County Community Service Award.

All six — one of which is a high school student — were chosen from community nominations made in 2020. The judging and ceremony were delayed until this year because of the measures needed after the COVID-19 pandemic began.

The ceremony will be conducted virtually this year at 7 p.m. Thursday. To register in advance — ideally by Wednesday — go to https://tinyurl.com/PDN-communityservice awards. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

This annual award was created to recognize the dedication, sacrifices, and accomplishments of Clallam County people who do extraordinary things for their neighbors, their community, or the environment.

Nominations are made by members of the community to the Peninsula Daily News. The recipients are then selected from those nominations by a blue-ribbon judging committee that includes at least one former Community Service Award honoree.

The 2020 awards are the 40th annual, begun by the PDN and now co-sponsored by Soroptimist International of Port Angeles-Noon Club.

Terry Ward, PDN publisher, offered his personal congratulations to all the honorees “for your outstanding work, which has made a difference — and which has made Clallam County a better place.”

The recipients are:

Jayson Grice — A longtime community volunteer, he has been instrumental in a variety of Nor’Wester Rotary projects such as the Skate Park and the restoration of downtown Port Angeles murals.

Gary Gleason — Gleason has served on the Clallam County Planning Commission, the Discovery Trails Advisory Board, CCH Individualized Support Services, the Clallam County School Retirees’ Association (CCSRA) and the Washington State School Retirees’ Association.

Donald McIntyre — Better known on the North Olympic Peninsula as Santa Claus, he has volunteered for the role for some 50 years, 15 of them as a Toys for Tots good will ambassador.

Tim Tucker — A longtime volunteer, he is especially known for his work on sporting events.

Cherie Kidd — A three-term Port Angeles City Council member and former mayor, Kidd is a longtime volunteer and organizer who has left her mark on the city of Port Angeles.

River Jensen — The honoree in the Youth Category, she has amassed donations and created Christmas bags for those in need since she was 10.

Here is a summary of some of the accomplishments of each of the honorees, as noted by their nominators.

• Jayson Grice — Grice has volunteered his time and talents to the community for decades, according to his nominator, Steve Zenovic.

Zenovic, who was a Community Service Award recipient in 2006, knew Grice first as a volunteer baseball coach and later as a fellow member of the Nor’Wester Rotary Club, where he was involved in such community projects as the Skate Park construction, improvements to the new entry area of Feiro Marine Life Center, the development of the dog park and the restoration of the three downtown Port Angeles murals.

John Brewer, a 2018 Community Service Award recipient, wrote in a letter supporting the nomination that Grice had donated the use of his power lift for the mural restoration project for three months in the summer — a busy construction season — at no charge, saving the club at least $8,400.

John Teichert, who is retired from National Park Service management, told of Grice’s immediate action to help a family on McDougal Street when a wind storm blew a tree into their home in 2018.

Describing him as a “below-the-radar” volunteer, Brewer said: “Jayson Grice is one of the most unselfish and valuable volunteers in Clallam County, epitomizing what community service is all about. And he does it without desire of any credit.”

• Gary Gleason — Gleason is loyal, dedicated and humble, said Lora Brabant in her nomination letter.

He has served on the Clallam County Planning Commission, the Discovery Trails Advisory Board, CCH Individualized Support Services, the Clallam County School Retirees’ Association (CCSRA) and the Washington State School Retirees’ Association.

As for being humble, “It took me over a year to get Gary Gleason to give me any information concerning what he had done over the years,” Brabant said.

“He has faithfully served Clallam County for 20 years quietly,” she added.

“He didn’t want our local CCSRA unit to nominate him. He said let someone else get the recognition … Our unit disagrees. Gary deserves to be recognized for his loyalty and dedication to Clallam County.”

• Donald McIntyre — McIntyre, once a foster child, has delighted in bringing the joy of Christmas to as many children as possible for 50 years.

He got his start as the jolly man in the white beard in the Marines, continued it in Federal Way after his military service, and kept it up after he and his wife, Sharlene, moved to Diamond point in 2005.

McIntyre has volunteered with the Toys for Tots program since 1970 in Federal Way, said Mark Schildknecht, commandant of the Mount Olympus Detachment of the Marine Corps League, who nominated McIntyre for the award.

For the past 15 years, he has worked on the Clallam County Toys for Tots campaign.

“As such, Don makes personal appearances at business meetings, social functions, sporting events and even military exercises,” Schildknecht said.

“In the past eight years, Don has personally collected over $65,000 in donations to Toys for Tots. One hundred percent of those donations goes toward seeing to it that no child is forgotten at Christmas,” the nomination written in 2020 said.

“This has been Don’s mission in life for the past 50 years, and the reason he is being nominated for the 2020 Clallam County Community Service Award.”

• Tim Tucker — Tucker is involved in multiple youth sporting activities, especially soccer, and sporting venues that attract people to Clallam County, said nominator Jonathan Picker.

He has volunteered with the Big Hurt Frosty Moss relay and the Winter Ice Village, served as Super Cup commissioner and acted in theater — Macbeth for instance — among other events.

He has served on the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce board and been the master of ceremonies many times.

“Tim is the glue that holds this town together,” Picker said.

“Graciously volunteering his time to anyone in need, he’s there to ensure the success of an event.”

“He’s a true friend to everyone he meets,” Picker continued.

“Just ask anyone who comes in contact with Tim. The world needs more men like Tim Tucker.”

• Cherie Kidd — “Kidd has long exemplified what the Clallam County Community Service Award stands for,” said John Brewer in his nomination, describing her as having a can-do heart, being confident, spirited, having a proven ability to motivate and organize others and dedication in the face of multiple obstacles

She served 12 years on the Port Angeles City Council — as a council member, deputy mayor and mayor — in “what is essentially a volunteer job,” Brewer said. She was the first woman to be elected to three four-year terms on the council.

She filmed a TV show promoting Port Angeles. She went door-to-door raising money to keep Hurricane Ridge open every day year-round. She was the creator of Port Angeles’ only historic district. the Civic Historic District on Lincoln Street.

Kidd pushed for years for taller fences on the refurbished Eighth Street bridges, beginning in 2009 shortly after they were unveiled. In 2018 she hosted a community block party on the bridges to celebrate the new safety fencing that had been installed. Until this February, no suicides were reported from either bridge.

Kidd has served as president of Soroptimist International of Port Angeles (noon club) and Port Angeles Kiwanis (noon club) and is on the Clallam County Economic Development Corp., board. She was a founding board member of the William Shore Memorial Pool District and now serves as its president.

She volunteers at the Salvation Army. A cancer survivor,she speaks to cancer survivor groups.

Kidd won the title of Ms. Senior USA 2019-2020 and became an official Senior United Nations Ambassador.

• River Jensen — River started River’s Christmas Project when she was 10 and she has never missed a year since. The Sequim High School student has handed out thousands of bags of toiletries and warm socks, shoes and gloves to those in need on the street, at the Salvation Army, Serenity House, local food banks and police departments around Christmas time for five years.

She briefly considered a hiatus from the volunteer work in 2019 after the unexpected death of her father that October, but she decided “that people were counting on her and she couldn’t let them,” said her mother, Anna Jensen, who nominated her in 2020.

Even during a pandemic, River provided more than 575 care packs of toiletries and day-to-day items to local agencies, each with a person l note from her. Her family helped her collect donations through an online effort to prevent her having to collect them personally.

The young woman, who began volunteer work when she was 6, serving meals at the Salvation Army in Port Angeles, is person “we can all look up to,” her mother said.