Dad Gets an Award

Last night was the Annual Meeting and awards presentation for our Southeast Minnesota Chapter of the American Red Cross.
This meeting was originally scheduled for August, but then all the bad floods happened in our area and the chapter was too busy responding to this disaster, so the meeting was rescheduled for a month later.

Melanie introduces a photo presentation of the relief efforts our chapter provided after the floods.

Here's a little background: Dad used to be the Chairman of the Board of Directors for our chapter and during his tenure, he recruited me as a board member. I served on the board with Dad for a few years and also participated in some other volunteer activities at the chapter during that time. I got to know some of the staff pretty well and it's nice for me to stop by the chapter office and see them every once in a while (even though I don't have free time to volunteer anymore).

Melanie (who is the Executive Director of the chapter) called me a while ago to tell me they were going to present Dad with an award at the annual meeting and could I please make sure that I convinced the "parental units" to attend without divulging the surprise. I did tell Mom, since she's the person who would have to do most of the convincing.

It was an enjoyable meeting (they served BIG pieces of pie and decaf coffee and I was able to knit almost the entire time). It was good to be reminded of the Red Cross purpose and services in our area and beyond, plus fun to see some familiar faces and visit with old friends.

There were many awards given out and then it was time for Dad's award.

Here's Dad with some of the other award recipients.

The award he received is the "Lois Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award." Lois was the Executive Director of the chapter for many years and Dad worked closely with her and the chapter on many projects during his tenure with the board. However, Lois reminded us of many other things Dad did for the Red Cross over the years, including teaching many adult and kids first aid classes, and organizing disaster response guidelines for Fillmore County (many more which I can't remember just now).

So Lois is reading all this stuff about Dad and then finally gets to the point where she says, "and the Lois Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award goes to....Chuck Kaun!" Dad looked so surprised! I patted him on the back and said, "didn't you figure out what she was getting around to, Dad?"

(Sorry Lois that I didn't get a better picture than this!)

Mom and I were so happy he had agreed to come to the meeting. Dad was funny, he said, "now I know why Mom told me to put a tie on."

It was great to see Dad recognized for all his hard work over the years, even though he didn't think it was hard at the time. That's just Dad....he enjoys helping others and if he can do a little teaching along the way, that's even better.

Here Lois is explaining that they would be getting a new award since Dad's name had been spelled wrong and they didn't find that out till the awards were unpacked for the presentation yesterday afternoon.

And the other thing I found out while I was at this meeting last night is that Mom and Dad are being honored this weekend as the Grand Marshals for the Fall Fest Celebration going on in my hometown. "Geez, Mom, you should tell me this stuff in advance," I said. "Well, I wanted you to be surprised when you saw it in the newspaper," was her response.