Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

12 new leaders graduate at banquet

Leadership Nevada County had its commencement ceremonies, sending 12 new leaders out into the world.

The fourth annual leadership banquet was held Thursday, Dec. 2, at the Hamilton-Blakely Senior Adult Center, with the Class of 2004 receiving plaques for the graduation exercises.

In addition, the Class of 2005 was introduced at the event, and given a preview of what it can expect in the coming year.

Barbara Lowdermilk, president of the Leadership Board of Directors, welcomed everyone to the center, saying the banquet is the class's reward for all the hard work the members put in during the year. It is also, she added, time to introduce the Class of 2005, and celebrate the holidays.

Jon Chadwell, executive director of the Prescott-Nevada County Economic Development Office, and who brought the program to Prescott and Nevada County, acted as master of ceremonies. This year's class, he said, faced some challenges, and each class has its own personality and is a new experience.

"I enjoy getting to know everybody and the program is never exactly the same," he said. "We change things to try and stay up-to-date."

This was followed by a PowerPoint presentation of what the group did during its year in the program. The program begins in January with a two-day retreat at the Grandview Plantation in Columbus, where the participants are divided into teams. These teams are required to pick and complete a community project during the year.

Chadwell said the Class of 04 had a lot of fun and hoped the participants saw parts of Nevada County they didn't know recognize. "It's part of the program, learning what you didn't know and meeting resources. Whatever a person's attitude is going into the program, I can promise they will learn something, make friends and have fun."

In talking about the teams, Chadwell explained to the incoming class they don't get to pick and choose who will be in their group. Teams are established, he said, based in part on the personality test taken, the background of the participants and working with people they may not know well.

A representative from the three teams from the Class of 04 spoke on the projects they did.

Peggy Lloyd spoke for Team 1, which also included Janet Hood, Laurie Pilgreen and Brent Talley. Their project was to nominate historic locations in Nevada County to the National Register of Historic Places.

"We found out it was lot of work," Lloyd said. "We nominated the old section of DeAnn Cemetery."

She said a number of steps are involved in simply making the nomination, including filling out forms, answering questions and taking pictures to see if a location is eligible. If it is, the next step includes more of the same, including filling out the nomination forms. "We chose cemeteries, and it's labor intensive. You have to describe tombstones and how they apply to funerary art, and do mini-biographies of some of the people buried there."

The team managed to get the old section of the DeAnn Cemetery done and the data will be sent to Little Rock. Lloyd said it will take months before anything is known.

In addition, the team has most of the Moscow Cemetery written up for eligibility, and is keeping an eye on other places in the county. Lloyd said this will be an ongoing project.

Todd Richards spoke for Team 2. It's project was painting the helicopter landing pad at the old Nevada County Hospital. Team 2 was made up of Richards, Colbey Dougan, Scott Hamilton and Doris Niemyer.

Richards said the pad is now a bright yellow and red. He challenged the class of 05 to get started early on its projects. Part of the reason for this is because, as he said, the projects can change, and what a team chooses to do will determine how its year goes.

Jeremy Franklin spoke for Team 3, consisting of Kristi Neal, Carol Newton and Joey Wallace.

This team's projects was Project Child Safe. The members worked to pass out gun locks to people in the county. Franklin said the program was developed by the National Shooting Sport Foundation to promote safe firearm handling.

"We were able to place locks in four businesses, ran an article in the newspaper describing the project and telling where people could get the locks. We relied on lots of people," he said.

More than 300 locks were distributed at the businesses, with more than 100 more handed out at the Chicken and Egg Festival. Overall, he said, about 700 gun locks were handed out.

"Our goal was to raise the awareness of gun safety," Franklin said. "If one child is saved because of it, it was a successful project."

As the banquet wound down, Chadwell issued a challenge to the Class of 05, as he traditionally does.

He began by saying the Class of 04 had a good time getting to know one another well, learning each others strengths and weaknesses and finding out there are people they can ask for help.

In a nutshell, Chadwell's challenge to the incoming class is to prove the naysayers wrong. "There are plenty of people who'll tell you what can't be done and people who will give you a list of what you can't do. The best revenge is proving them wrong.

"When the work is more important than who gets the credit you can get more done, and getting things done is what this program is all about. As of tonight there are 50 graduates of this program, most are still in the area. It's a great pool to draw from and together we can do great things."

The Class of 05 consists of: Shunna Austin, Jerry Beck, Matt Burnside, Naomi Butler, Jake Cornelius, Claudette Harris, Morris Irvin, Karen Jobe, Brandy Jones, David Kassos, Elaine King, Tim Loe, Charity Lowdermilk, Pat McCullough, Rainna McGuire and Lynn Vanderveer.