Florida Select Society of Sanitary Sludge Shovelers Holds its Annual Meeting

The Florida Select Society of Sanitary Sludge Shovelers (FSSSSS) breakfast was held on Thursday at the conference. The agenda each year is generally the same: attendees sign in, review the contact list for errors and missing information, report the spotting of fellow shovelers not properly attired with their shovel pin, and share stories. They also advise the leadership (ph7) of FSSSSS potential candidates who should be given consideration for membership in the future, and then sign the certificates for the nominees for the current year deemed to have contributed outstanding and meritorious service above and beyond the call of duty to the Florida Water Environment Association (FWEA) per the guidelines.

The nominees must be present at the conference awards luncheon to receive their certificate and pin as dictated by tradition. The names of the nominees remain secret until the awards ceremony, except for the shovelers who attend the breakfast.

A new addition this year was a document that pH 7 generated called the “Golden Shovels” that highlights information gathered about the shovelers who acquire the asterisk mark (meaning they are deceased) on the Class of Shovelers list.

Thanks were given to Rim Bishop, a Class of 1996 shoveler, for providing information on 15 of the 17 members who have passed; contact information for many of these had been lost and the group didn’t know of their passing.