Award Giving Summer Social

Members of the TriCity Genealogical Society met at the home of Anne Nolan and John Covey for an evening of social interaction on Wednesday, August 10^th. Many favorite potluck dishes were shared and enjoyed. John fired up the grill and offered sausage to anyone interested. President Walt Wood and his wife brought the final touch, homemade pies.

Easy conversation was the sweetest dish however. When a group of genealogists gets together topics are endless. Successes from recent research trips were interwoven with stories about grandchildren. Medical issues past and current, including archaic terms and definitions, surfaced and disappeared at will. There was seldom a moment with nothing to say or a repeated story to enjoy.

There was a little official business. President Walt Wood presented the Outstanding Volunteer of the Year Awards which were originally presented in June at the Washington State Genealogical Society Conference in Tacoma. This year’s winners were Bill Floberg and John Covey. The following was not only printed on their certificates but read to those attending the social

Bill Floberg, of Kennewick, Washington, is recognized for his many years of support,

encouragement and assistance to the society. Mr. Floberg is one who is always working quietly in the background tending to the less than glamorous, but absolutely necessary, things that make a society successful. He can always be counted on to help whenever help is needed. For example, he manned the bookstore at the TCGS “Traveling Through Time” seminar in the fall of 2015. Had he not volunteered, there might not have been a bookstore. At present, Mr. Floberg is serving as vice-president of TCGS. He has also served as the membership chair for the last four years and chair of the judging committee for the year-long TCGS Archived Document Contest. Mr. Floberg is the definition of the word volunteer and richly deserves this recognition.

John Covey, of Richland, Washington, is recognized for his leadership and guidance through

challenging times. He was nominated by the Tri-City Genealogical Society (TCGS). Mr. Covey has served two terms as TCGS President. During his extended tenure, he led without hesitancy and he never lost his focus on successfully leading the society during and through difficult times. For many years Mr. Covey has coordinated week-long trips to the Family History Center in Salt Lake City. He has also chaired the 2015 TCGS fall seminar “Traveling Through Time” with William Dollarhide as the featured presenter. Mr. Covey’s dedication to the preservation and success of TCGS makes him richly deserving of this award.

The TriCity Genealogical Society is honored to have this caliber of leadership guide the way. Bill Floberg and John Covey are in good company of Outstanding Volunteers awarded to other genealogical societies in the state of Washington. To read about the recognition given to other society volunteers access the Washington State Genealogical Society website’s article “Outstanding Volunteers and Teams – 2016”.

Photo by Roxanne Lowe

Here are some of the people from TCGS that attended the Washington State Genealogical Society conference in Ellensberg with speaker David Rencher.   L to R – a friend, Renee Petersen, Veronica Anguiano, Hank Jackel (standing), Margie Belden and Mary Ann Orton.

At this conference Veronica Anguiano and Margie Belden were awarded WSGS Recognition awards for which TCGS had nominated them.

Veronica Anguiano 

Veronica was recognized for her outstanding efforts in the cataloging of historical documents of importance and value to researchers interested in Benton and Franklin Counties.

Veronica Anguaimo has been selected by the Tri-City Genealogical Society (TCGS) as their recipient of the WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award. She was selected for her commitment to researching and sharing information, even outside her local Society.

Ms. Anguiano has distinguished herself in untiring support of the TCGS as its Research Chair and helping research Benton and Franklin county histories. Ms. Anguiano has responded willingly and efficiently to numerous requests for information from outside her local society.

Ms. Anguiano has become heavily involved in re-cataloging the TCGS library holdings so the holdings can be searched from the FamilySearch Library Catalog. As the holdings are re-cataloged, the new numbers are uploaded to the FamilySearch system, making them searchable from FamilySearch’s online site.

Ms. Anguaimo is a respected and diligent member of the TCGS, and richly deserves this recognition.

Margie Belden

 Margie was recognized for exceptional and consistent support of the goals and operation of the Tri-City Genealogical Society.

Margie Beldin has been selected by the Tri-City Genealogical Society (TCGS) as their recipient of the WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award. She was selected for her dedicated, enthusiastic efforts to educate members of her local Society.

Ms. Beldin has distinguished herself in untiring support of the TCGS as its Education Chair for many years.  In that position, Ms. Beldin has made many classes on a wide variety of subjects available to the membership. Ms. Beldin has not only coordinated setting up classes and programs, she has taught numerous classes herself, as she actively increases her knowledge and capability through attendance at genealogical conferences and classes outside the TCGS. She is always willing to share the knowledge that she gets from these events.

Ms. Beldin is a valued and hard-working member of the TCGS, and richly deserves this recognition.

WSGS 2012 Recognition Awards

It is with great pleasure that we introduce the TCGS recipients of the WSGS 2012 Recognition Awards. Janet McKinnon and Susan Faulkner were both recognized for their “exceptional and consistent support of the goals and operation of”¹ the Tri-City Genealogical Society; Gary Miller has been recognized “for outstanding efforts in the identification, preservation, dissemination or publication of information of genealogical importance and value to researchers interested in the families of Washington state.”²

Janet, as most of you know, has served as TCGS’ Vice-President and Program Chair since 2010. In addition, she was instrumental in organizing the annual Washington State Genealogical Society State Conference held in Richland in September 2011. Janet also serves regularly in the Richland Family History Center helping others learn more about doing genealogical research. And, at the end of 2011, when no one came forward to run for TCGS Vice-President, Janet agreed to continue for a second term.

Susan received recognition for serving as TCGS President from 2010-2011. It was she who enthusiastically accepted the opportunity for TCGS to host the 2011 WSGS State Conference and worked hard to see its successful fruition. In addition to serving in these capacities, she also made several presentations both to our society members and other members of the community and still found time to contribute articles to our TCGS Bulletin.

Gary Miller was nominated for his efforts in record preservation for TCGS. He helped with the photo indexing project for CREHST Museum in Richland, Washington.  After retirement, he contributed time indexing the Benton and Franklin County school censuses covering 1910 to 1933. In an effort to resolve some issues with the school census indexing project, Gary drove to Ellensburg to obtain better images of the census pages. At the end of that project, he created a document explaining what was done and where there might be some problems with the index. With the school census project finished, Gary turned his efforts to helping with the 1940 US Census indexing 20,000 names since April 2012.

We congratulate all three WSGS Recognition Award recipients and thank them for their efforts to sustain TCGS. These recognitions will be formally awarded at the 2012 WSGS Annual State Conference September 8th in Port Angeles, Washington.

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1 Washington State Genealogical Society. Annual Outstanding Volunteer Awards Program: Introduction to Outstanding Volunteer Awards. Union Gap: WSGS, date unknown. Web. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wasgs/volawardintro.pdf.

2 Ibid.