At last week’s Chamber of Commerce banquet, I had the privilege of presenting Rev. Havard McDonald as one of the 2024 Outstanding Citizen of Magee award winners. At this point, Rev. McDonald has won every award that the City of Magee offers— the Spirit of Magee, Hall of Fame and Outstanding Citizen. He deserves them all.
All the other winners—Outstanding Citizen Dr. Dwayne Middleton, Spirit of Magee Jean Allen, and Hall of Fame winners Dr. Rudy Runnels and, awarded posthumously, Murry Keith and sisters Mary May and Myra Stringer— have many attributes among them and years of service to our city.
But what am I? Chopped liver? I did win the Spirit of Magee Award a couple of years ago, but I think that’s more for all the noise I make than for my many solid accomplishments. Surely I’ve done enough stuff to make the Chamber see that I am a winner and deserve to get up on that stage one more time in one of my Dirt Cheap award-accepting outfits. Or two more times, like Rev. McDonald.
Admittedly, there may be a few things I haven’t done that might be on the resumes of this year’s winners.
I haven’t started any organizations or been president of anything like the Lions Club or the Development Foundation, but I was on the Refreshment Committee for the Sinfonia Music Club we used to have here...until they found out that I was eating more refreshments that I was contributing and demoted me to the Clean-up Crew.
I haven’t started any businesses as some Outstanding Citizens have, but people have told me that if I ever move from Magee the fastfood industry here would collapse. That has to count for something.
I didn’t found our local book club, but I am a charter member and I am there every month with my orange salad for the lunch, putting my 2-cents’ worth into the book discussion. Some might even say that I put in 3-cents’ worth. Others might say that what I put in isn’t worth 1 cent, but they would be people who are jealous that I might win a Major Award from the Chamber of Commerce.
Despite the gap on my resume of outstanding accomplishments, I do feel that I have made contributions to the community that should qualify me to be honored again at a Chamber banquet.
For example, I can do 200 or more crunches or sit-ups. I can do 200 if my aerobics instructor makes me. I can do the “more” if the first 200 paralyzes my brain and my body does the rest without realizing what it’s doing. So I’m a poster child, uh, adult, for exercise in the City of Magee.
Though I’ve never started a business or enlisted one to locate in Magee, I’ve helped the economy by shopping every time I get a chance. My husband doesn’t appreciate this achievement, but he’d be proud if I won an award for economic support of my town.
I sing in the church choir up at the First Baptist Church of Magee, on the wrong page sometimes and the wrong note sometimes, but with great enthusiasm. And here at the paper I write an occasional book review and a weekly column in which I often give much needed political advice to people who are not smart enough to agree with me, like liberals.
With all that singing and writing for all these years, couldn’t the Chamber create an Arts Award for me at least?
I have also conducted a one-woman campaign to get appliance companies to make washing machines that actually wash clothes. I have pointed out on many occasions that today’s machines are built to save water, save detergent, and save electricity. They do everything, in fact, but wash clothes. Thanks to me, women in our county are now buying used agitator machines instead of the Kardashian models that look good and do nothing.
I mean, I’m solving a national problem here. Isn’t that worth an award?
I also rescue stray dogs. Not always on purpose. Sometimes I think I’ll just provide a stray with a nourishing meal so that he can lope energetically over to my neighbor’s house to take up residence, but a surprising number of them choose to stay with me.
That’s how we got Buddy the Chihua-mutt, who stopped for a snack and decided to sleep with us from then on. Indirectly, that’s how we got Betsy the shiz-tsu-wannabe. Once Buddy took up residence, he needed a partner in crime, and Betsy was offered by a friend who knew I couldn’t resist her cuteness factor.
But I saved them both from the dog pound, thus saving the city the cost of feeding them, which should add some weight to my candidacy for a Major Award from the city next year.
And I would prefer that it not come posthumously. I have a new, cheap Major Award Accepting Outfit that I’d prefer to wear on stage, not at a “viewing,” if you know what I mean.
