Helen Marynuk was the surprise recipient of Guilford’s Citizen of the Year award at the town’s annual Community Recognition Evening on Tuesday, May 11.
The event, at Broad Brook Grange, also featured community service presentations and musical performances by Guilford students and community members, as well as longevity awards presented to three Grange members.
Helen Marynuk, a lifelong resident, was honored for her years of service with the Guilford Volunteer Fire Dept. Auxiliary, as a mainstay of its fundraising events, and for her decades of volunteer work at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, which she still performs two days a week.
It was noted that hers was one of the early Eastern European families in Guilford, and that her ancestors spoke no English upon arriving in town around 1913. She met her future husband, also the child of immigrants, in the one-room school in her Guilford neighborhood.
After her husband’s early death, she raised her three daughters, and was employed in food service at Guilford Central and Academy Schools.
She has walked five or more miles a day for her adult life, formerly through the woods and fields, and now primarily on town roads. The Guilford road crew considers her their resident expert on road conditions in her East Mountain neighborhood.
A number of residents then spoke about the recipient, including town poet Verandah Porche, who shared an excerpt from an interview she had done with Helen Marynuk.
The annual event, co-sponsored by the Grange and Guilford Central School, began with a musical prelude by accordionist Bob Tucker and presentation of colors by Matt Clark of Scout Troop 403, assisted by several friends.
Guilford students read essays they had written detailing their community service activities over the past school year. Readers were: Hunter Beebe, Galen Fletcher and Dana Reyor, Grade 1; Elizabeth Lussier, Grade 3; Leon Ogden and Max Potter-Earle, Grade 5; Zoe Atkin and Kelsey Windish, Grade 6; 7th graders Rebecca Potter and Anna Pettee -- who also read for absent Chris Haley -- and Holly McCarrick, Grade 8.
Guilford Central School instrumental students, directed by Mary Harvey-Bandish, performed two ensemble pieces: Doxy was played by
Anna Pettee, alto sax, Becca Potter, tenor sax and Jack LaPorte, drums. Basin Street Blues was performed by Julian won Wodke, alto sax, and trumpeters Jake Guarino, Galen Karlen-Mason and Mary Harvey-Bandish.
Three members of Broad Brook Grange received longevity awards:
Richard Austin, 20 years; Beverley Kerber, 25 Years and Mary Sargent, 30 years.
The evening concluded with refreshments, including a special cake for the Citizen of the Year.