 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The 2002 Mortensen Award 2002 Affirmation Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada October 2003 The Mortensen Award was established, under the direction of Ron Kershaw, in 1987. It was decided the award would be given annually to the one individual who had given outstanding service and leadership to Affirmation. It is the only continuing award Affirmation presents and it tries to recognize the best people in the organization. The past recipients are:
The selection committee for the award is composed of past recipients. Each year, around July, a call is sent out to all Affirmation leaders, chapters and groups asking for nominations. Anyone may nominate any individual or you may even nominate yourself. The receipt of nomination letters constitutes the only people considered for the award. The award was established and intended to always be an award for service to Affirmation. This is the only consideration in the selection of the recipient. We greatly applaud those wonderful souls in our midst who also make great contributions to the gay and lesbian community at large. We especially applaud those people who have made outstanding efforts in the Mormon community through related groups such as Family Fellowship, Gamofites and others in increasing the understanding of the gay and lesbian Mormon community. But because the Mortensen Award is intended to honor only service and leadership to Affirmation, the winner is decided totally on the merits of the nomination letters received and the contributions to Affirmation as spelled out in those letters. Olin Thomas Receives the 2002 Mortensen Award
James Kent presented the 2002 Paul Mortensen Award at the September 7, Saturday Evening Banquet of the Las Vegas Affirmation Conference. This person is a very hard worker, and has accpeted many positions of resonsibility on the local and national levels. He has been instrumental in keeping his local monthly chapter meetings and fmaiy home evening gatherings for several years. He has donated greatly in his time, financial donations, and talents to Affirmation. He is reliable both as a leader to assign projects, and as a follower in completing any project assigned to him. He lives his life by example, not expecting anyone to do anything that he himself would not be willing to do. He is a warm and caring person, and has always gone out of his way to make people welcome. He has a great wit and sense of humor to battle off any adversity that comes his way. He is a very organized person. Some would say he's anal retentive, to which he would reply, "Is that with or without a hyphen?" His home has been a place of gathering for meetings, parties, and a place of refuge for members of Affirmation. Under his leadership, Affirmation had it's first National Conference East of the Mississippi in the year 2000. He personally selected 25 sites to decide which place would be the best place to gather. When people refer to the Washington, DC, Chapter of Affirmation, he is the embodiment of that Chapter. One of his friends like to refer to him as the Steel Magnolia of Virginia. I would like to announce Oin Thomas as this year's Paul Mortensen Award winner.
|
www.affirmation.org