Five people are being honored for 2018. John Skillings and Braelynn Wagers have been named the Citizens of the Year, and Mark Boardman, Sue Jones and Kathy McMahon-Klosterman are being recognized for longtime efforts in the community as Citizens of the Years.
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The five represent significant contributions to community life centered on helping others to share in that community life more fully by both encouraging others to join them in what they do as well as sharing gifts with those in need of help.
Recognition is for efforts outside of recipients’ employment.
The Citizens of the Year is a joint effort of The Oxford Press and the Oxford Kiwanis Club, which hosts the recipients each year at a noon luncheon where they receive a framed print of the Uptown sidewalk clock.
All honorees are eligible to serve on the selection committee in future years. The committee meets on the first Saturday of December to review nominations and select the honorees for that year.
Skillings, a retired Miami University professor and administrator, wanted to expand the community’s access to local news and began an 18-month effort originally aimed at expanding the size and coverage of The Oxford Press and resulted in the creation of the online, student-staffed Oxford Observer.
A letter nominating him for Citizen of the Year explained negotiations at expanding The Oxford Press halted at the start of 2018.
“As can happen when negotiations falter, someone has to take the lead in shuttling back and forth among the groups in search of a mutually-agreeable alternative. John was the one who got that job done,” the writer said.
Wagers, a Talawanda High School senior, has been an active member of the school’s Family, Career, Community Leaders of America chapter and heavily involved in community service efforts but took a strong leadership role in organizing projects for the chapter. That included a huge collection of items for families left homeless by the wildfires in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and establishing an FCCLA chapter at the middle school to prepare those younger students for high school.
“Not often do you see someone of her age spending countless hours trying to make a difference in the community,” a nomination said of her.
Boardman has been involved with the Three Valley Conservation Trust for a long time, but that involvement has been a big part of his contribution to the community in the past couple years. He has served as board chair for the trust, took the lead in planning and constructing a walkway to allow easier access to one of the local treasured natural areas and filled in as interim executive director while the search for a new director was conducted. He also led that search committee.
“He essentially worked a full-time job for seven months and still managed to organize and lead the Three Valley Board of Trustees,” a nomination letter noted.
Jones has been involved in an extensive list of charitable and arts efforts in the years since her retirement from teaching and while she does yeoman’s service for others, she also involves other people in those efforts.
That prompted one letter write to comment in a nomination for her as Citizen of the Years, “By allowing her many friends to contribute to these good works, Sue gives us all a way to give back.”
McMahon-Klosterman, also involved in myriad community activities, was recognized for both basic hospitality as well as taking on social issues affecting the community and the country at large.
“She is willing to take the difficult road, the one not easily traveled in standing up for her friends, fellow citizens with special needs and beliefs that make our town a place in which we can all feel safe and respected,” one nomination letter read.
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