It’s the time of the year to roll out the red carpets and go gaga over the parade of celebrities in gowns, glitter, ruffled tuxes and tattoo-revealing wardrobes. The music world’s Grammy awards were handed out this past weekend and the movies’ Academy Awards will take place on March 4.
We love awards shows and pageantry. We recently watched the Kennedy Center awards and the Golden Globes. Both the NAACP and the NRA just held annual awards banquets, to provide some contrast. Baseball has announced its newest Hall of Fame members and even President Trump got into the act with his Fake News top awards for 2017. (For the record, we didn’t make the list.)
Maybe it’s time for Sonoma County and its various cities and communities to hold our own annual awards ceremonies. Forget about the gowns and tuxes, we prefer wine country casual with boots, blue jeans, comfortable cottons, colorful wraps and sensible shoes. Let’s shake out the red carpet, vacuum off the wildfire ashes and hold a party, shall we?
Instead of best picture, best hip hop artist or song of the year, what awards should we consider? Let’s focus on who and what made the biggest news and community contributions over the past year of 2017. If we do, the majority of our standing ovations and golden statues would be related to our biggest story of the year, the North Bay wildfires of 2017.
But, we could also list prizes for other achievements in government leadership, philanthropy, citizen activism, unsung volunteers and heroes, our future all-stars in various youth and school groups and others.
We probably should update our Sonoma County timeline that in 2017 recorded both historical rainfall totals and the hottest heat streak (Labor Day) on record.
Before we announce the various awards related to the wildfires, let’s again acknowledge the most recent honorees of the Spirit of Sonoma Award. These awards spotlight individual contributions to the local economy, various industries and community leadership.
Our local winners were Cloverdale attorney James DeMartini; the Pedroncelli winery family of Geyserville; Richard Norgrove Sr., of Bear Republic Brewing Company; Mark West civic leader Roni Berg; Chris Brokate, of Guerneville’s Clean River Alliance; Sebastopol farmers and winery owners Teresa and John Balletto; Farm Bureau leader John Azevedo; Brad Peterson of Silver Oak Winery; and David Mohle, longtime Windsor Chamber of Commerce board member.
Congratulations to one and all, and thank you for keeping your acceptance speeches brief. We know of many other worthy men and women from the hospitality, agriculture, public sector, small business ownership ranks and environmental activists who could be singled out as well. Let’s applaud them as “best supporting actors.”
Among local youth groups, the Warm Spring 4-H Club that started a vegetable garden to feed local seniors and others deserves an Oscar statue. So do the young members of Cloverdale’s Coro de Paz choir and the Analy High School students who testified with placards at a school board meeting to support their teachers’ salaries and classroom budgets.
There were many young students and groups who volunteered at the emergency shelters during the wildfires and organized fund raisers for fire victim relief.
Of course the tallest of Oscar statues goes to our battalions of first responders. Many risked their lives as they fought to save the lives of others. Some have already given encore performances by toiling in the more recent southern California wildfires.
There’s one striking difference between our local Sonoma County awards and the one’s we’ve been watching on our TVs. Ours don’t need to dwell on a #MeToo list of harassment victims or awkward moments when someone’s name like our president, a male movie mogul or one-time favorite comedian gets loudly booed.
Here, we do it right. Here, it’s not about celebrity, it’s about community.
