'Recognizing the good': Awards honor community contributions
By Starla Pointer,
McMinnville N-R/News-Register, May 16, 2023
Stan
Primozich, last year’s McMinnville Man of the Year, prepared to honor this
year’s winner, Gene Zinda, at the Distinguished Service Awards banquet
Wednesday night.
He
lifted a thick sheaf of paper, indicating how many pages would be needed to
list all of Zinda’s contributions over the last 60-plus years.
“Gene
has given so much to this community and to all of us,” Primozich said.
The
same could be said of all the winners honored at the DSA event: Junior Citizen
Deven Paolo; Outstanding Farmers Marv and Georgia Bernards; and Outstanding
Educator Kindra Butler; and Marianne Mills, Woman of the Year.
Woman
of the Year was the final award presented at the banquet, hosted by the
McMinnville City Club. Chelsey Nichol of the City Club summed up the evening by
saying, “I’m thankful to live in a world with Marianne Mills in it … in a town
with all our winners in it.”
The
2022 McMinnville Distinguished Service Awards event followed a tradition
started by the McMinnville Jaycees in the mid-1950s.
After
the Jaycees chapter closed, the DSA program was continued by a committee of
previous winners, then by the Odd Fellows. This was the McMinnville City Club’s
first year as host.
The
evening’s keynote speaker, Dr. Scott Gibson, discussed the role volunteerism
plays in building relationships and community.
Working
together sparks understanding among people, he said. They may have different
political or religious views, for instance, but they are working on a common
goal.
We
need to be open to diverse viewpoints, Gibson said. That will help counteract
the polarization and separation that currently exists in this country.
Anger,
lies, greed and the media try to divide us, he said; we need to combat that
with community, service and friendship.
“We
need to get together and listen to each other again,” he said. “Start by recognizing
the good in people, even if they’re different from us.”
A
longtime member of the McMinnville Lions Club, Gibson called for
“re-energizing” clubs and organizations that perform community service. “Make
service cool again,” he said. “Do something worthwhile while enjoying the
company of others.”
The
DSA winners did that, he said, and others should follow their lead.
Gibson
prepared written remarks prior to the banquet, but almost lost them when a
spill at his banquet table threatened to tear the printed pages to smithereens.
His
notes saved, he opened with a joke about the growing presence of artificial
intelligence. “I’m the last human speaker before ChatGPT takes over,” he
quipped, adding — presumably joking — that computers may even someday take over
his job as a physician who performs cancer screenings.
During
the awards presentation, Primozich listed many of Zinda’s history of
accomplishments: managing Skyline Manufacturing; founding the Rotary art and
wine auction that supported scholarships and Rotary Nature Park; serving on the
McMinnville Water & Light Commission for 15 years and on other boards such
as the McMinnville Downtown Association.
He
also led the Linfield Partners in Progress campaign; expanded the St. Vincent
de Paul food pantry while president of that organization; and started a program
to provide shoes for children at his Windemere real estate office.
The
Man of the Year award came as a “total surprise,” Zinda said.
He
said local residents had inspired him when he came to McMinnville in 1959. “I
learned to give back to the community,” he said.
Woman
of the Year Mills also has a long list of accomplishments in McMinnville, said
Ronni Lacroute, the 2022 winner who presented this year’s award.
A
1972 Linfield graduate, Mills is a longtime educator who started her career at
Amity High School and retired from Mac High after serving as one of the first
female Oregon high school athletic directors. She went on to work for
McMinnville Habitat for Humanity for six years, three as director.
After
retiring from public schools, Mills also supervised student teachers at
Linfield for 10 years and taught pickleball classes. She served on the
McMinnville Public Library Foundation Board and First Baptist Church board,
volunteered at Memorial Elementary School, where her granddaughters go to
school, helped with elections, and other community committees.
As
a P.E. teacher and coach in the 1970s, Mills worked with some of the first
competitive high school sports for girls. “Girls didn’t have access to high-level
coaching then,” Lacroute said. “Marianne committed to providing that for them.”
She
was inducted into the Amity Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016 for those efforts.
As
a counselor, tennis coach and AD at Mac High, Mills was “a leader in a field
where women haven’t always had a role,” Lacroute said.
Mills
said helping girls achieve on the athletic field was very important to her. “It
was so rewarding seeing them have opportunities.”
She
noted how she has kept in touch with many of her former students and players.
“I like people. I valued relationships,” she said. “I think that shines through
in everything I’ve done.”
Friends
were among people who congratulated her after she was surprised to learn she’d
been named Woman of the Year.
A
member of a family with deep ties to McMinnville, Mills grew up in Waldport and
came to Yamhill County for college. She said she’s glad she stayed in the area.
“This
has been a great place to call home. So many opportunities,” she said in her
acceptance speech.
“To
live a rich life, you need to be involved with others,” she said. “I have been
richly blessed to be a member of this community.”
Paolo,
honored as Junior Citizen, has been active in McMinnville, especially in
supporting young people learning about careers in the trades, since he and his
brother, Keath, started Solid Form Fabrication. They host interns and
contribute to Mac High’s career tech programs.
Deven
Paolo also spearheaded the creation of a foundation that provides scholarships
to students who plan to study trades. The goal is for it to give out $20,000
annually.
“College
is not for all, and high schools didn’t have shop classes anymore,” he said of
how he became interested in helping students.
He’s
pleased by the results, he said. “The impact you see … it’s always cool to see
success stories.”
He
recalled his own inspirations for career and community service, including Larry
Judd, who taught drafting and woodshop at Yamhill Carlton High School, and
Coach Dean Heuberger.
In
accepting the DSA honor, Paolo also thanked his family for its support: father
Murray Paolo, who also set an example; his brother and business partner, Keath;
and especially his wife, Randi, and children Kasen, a high school junior, and
Ellia, a freshman.
Young
Educator of the Year Butler is in her fourth year of teaching kindergarten at
Wascher Elementary School in Lafayette.
She
always knew she wanted to be a teacher, she said. Working at the Bear Hugs
preschool as a McMinnville High School student only strengthened her resolve.
“I’m
big on relationships and connections,” she said. “I love to build relationships
with students, and every day I see I’m making a difference in their lives.”
The
Bernards, Farmers of the Year, own and run Bernards Farm west of McMinnville.
They took over the family farm and Wallace Berry Farm in January 2022.
They
grow crops that they sell at farmers markets, supply to restaurants and offer
at a farmstand in the vintage barn on their property on Highway 18.
Bernards
Farm has been selling at the McMinnville Farmers Market for 22 years. Marv
serves on the MDA’s market committee.
He
joked that his role on the farm is “playing in the dirt.” His wife does all the
rest, he said.
The
role women play in farming is too often forgotten, Marv Bernards said. His
mother, Chris, “built Bernards Farm,” which started by selling corn, then added
bedding plants and hanging baskets. Now Georgia “keeps the engines of the farm
running,” he said.
Both
he and his wife said they are honored to be recognized — and honored to be part
of the McMinnville community.
……………..
FRONT PAGE PHOTO - N-R May 16, 2023, print edition: Marianne Mills walks through the crowd of supporters at the Distinguished Service Awards event May 10 to receive her Woman of the Year award. Mills has been a teacher, coach, athletic director, supervisor of student teachers and director of McMinnville Habitat for Humanity, to name just a few of her accomplishments. (Photo by Rachel Thompson/McMinnville N-R/News-Register
