civic awards

Horse lovers have places to go to shop

The Cheryl Diamond Award, named after the first female president of the NFMCA from 2001-02, went to Deana Campbell, who runs a local daycare center, Deana’s Country Kids

Campbell said that the people who know her said that it was unlike her to be speechless She was this time.

“Sometimes hard work can get you down, but something as simple as this makes me want to fight all the more for my people,” Campbell said “I was just hoping to be a nominee I just had to come to find out if I was a winner When I found out, my heart sunk ”

Finalists were Lisa Snyder Johnson, of Grace for Chase, an area teacher and community leader, and Mary Wildman, owner of Miss Mary Daycare.

The Tom Cronin Award winner, which serves as the 2023 Person of the Year, was given to Capt. Joseph More of the Lee County Sheriff ’s Office, North District

More started his career in Charlotte County in 1982 before coming to Lee County to work in corrections from 1993 to 1997 He rose through the ranks before becoming commander in the North Division in 2019.

Finalists included Wendell Williams, a longtime Lee County community volunteer, and Sand, a Navy veteran, and the longest serving member of the NFMCA

More said he was humbled to see all those whom he works with were there to cheer him on.

“These people have been great to work with. People like Brian Hamman, Mama Lu and Danny Ballard have helped the community and helped me get the community where we want it to be,” More said. “I didn’t realize how much of a big deal this was. I’m so thankful.”

echo FROM PAGE 9

ent in each country Sumatra is a dark, flavorful coffee, Ethiopian is very mellow,” said Frank Barbato, retail specialist with Bones It’s like wine and grapes, it's where it comes from.”

From there, it was on to try something tasty, from the homemade peanut butter to the juice from sugar cane, which Barry Gentile squeezed out of the stalk and longtime volunteer Hank Frechtling mulched using a bicycle to create energy to run the mulcher

“As soon as I retired in 2013, I started as a volunteer. I love what ECHO does. The people are Christians who make the world a better place as God intended,” Frechtling said “I like how they provide options to the less fortunate in developing countries in the Tropics to have less hunger ”

Visitors also learned different kinds of gardening methods, such as urban gardening. It was the job of intern Tammi Brittain to provide instruction.

“We teach people to grow things on little or no soil or land We use contain- ers for gardening, especially reusing things like old tires or kiddie pools,” Brittain said “They also use old carpets as wicking beds and other resources ”

Visitors were learning a lot. Laura Siemers brought her two sons, Landon, 12, and Colton, 9. Landon came on a field trip when he was younger and fell in love with it She said she learned a lot about natural plants that serve medicinal purposes

“We’ve come every year for the festival My boys are scouts and they said we can learn some things so Landon can get a badge,” Laura said. “He learned about another way to filter water besides the way they teach the Boy Scouts ”

“It’s pretty good It’s a hard choice to decide what I learned the most I learned about different kinds of fertilizer and water filters There was a lot to learn,” Colton said.

ECHO is at 17391 Durrance Road. For more information, visit echonet.org. NFMNL