AARP Wyoming Seeks Nominations For State’s Top Volunteer Over Age 50

Tom Lacock, AARP Wyoming

AARP Wyoming seeking nominations for the AARP Andrus Award for Community Service. The association's most prestigious volunteer tribute recognizes outstanding individuals age 50 and older who are sharing their experience, talents and skills to enrich the lives of others.

Click here to submit your nomination before July 15.

“The Andrus Award is our highest honor and our nomination period has seen Wyoming introduce us to some very high-level individuals who are making their communities a better place for all,” said AARP Wyoming State Director Sam Shumway. “We have no doubt that will happen again in 2025 and we look forward to your nominations.”

About the Award
The Andrus Award is named for AARP Founder Ethel Percy Andrus and is AARP’s most prestigious and visible volunteer award. It recognizes individuals who are sharing their experience, talent, and skills to enrich their communities in ways that are consistent with AARP’s purpose, vision, and commitment to volunteer service, and that inspire others to volunteer.

The award recipient will be announced in early fall and the winner and their family invited to an award ceremony in Sheridan as part of AARP Wyoming’s annual volunteer summit.

Who Can Nominate
Nominations for the AARP State Andrus Award for Community Service may be submitted by AARP members, volunteers, and chapter or unit members. Nominations also may be submitted by external organizations or groups and by members of the public at large. AARP staff and selection committee members may not submit nominations.

Selection of AARP State Andrus Award for Community Service recipients will be based on answers submitted to the following questions:

• Please describe the volunteer work that inspired you to nominate this individual for the award.
• How has the nominee's work supported AARP's vision and purpose?
• How has the work of the nominee improved the community or enhanced the lives of its residents for which/whom the word was performed?
• What is inspiring, courageous, unusual or innovative about the nominee's achievement?
• How has the nominee's work impacted other volunteers or inspired others to volunteer?

Nomination Criteria
Nominees for the AARP State Andrus Award for Community Service must meet the following eligibility requirements:

• Nominees must be 50 or older
• The achievements, accomplishments or service on which nominations are based must have been performed on a volunteer basis, without pay. Volunteers receiving small stipends to cover costs associated with the volunteer activity are eligible.
• The achievements, accomplishments or service on which the nominations are based must reflect AARP's vision and purpose (see below)
• The achievements, accomplishments or service on which the nominations are based must be replicable and inspire others to serve
• Partisan political achievements, accomplishments or service may not be considered
• Elected or appointed officials currently serving in office are not eligible
• Candidates currently campaigning for an elected office are not eligible
• Married couples or domestic partners who perform service together are eligible; however, teams are not
• The recipient does not need to be an AARP volunteer or an AARP member
• The recipient must live in the awarding state
• Previous Andrus Award recipients are not eligible
• Volunteers serving on the Andrus Award selection committee are not eligible 
• AARP staff members are not eligible
• This is not a posthumous award

Past Winners of AARP Wyoming’s Andrus Award

• Jack Wood of Sheridan won the 2024 AARP Wyoming Andrus Award. Wood is well known around Sheridan County circles, especially when it comes to the Pink Link fundraiser and early cancer detection efforts. In 2016 Wood joined the Sheridan Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors. The Red Coats, as they are known, work to welcome new businesses to the community through ribbon cuttings, and tours. The Red Coats also run the Boot Kicking Contest (a contest to see who can kick a cowboy boot off their foot the furthest) during the WYO Rodeo. The day after Thanksgiving, Jack and his wife, Kathleen, don the costumes of Santa and Mrs. Claus for up to four hours as they take part in the Sheridan Christmas Stroll Parade and then meet with children. Wood is just as comfortable in front of a grill as he is at a ribbon cutting. In 2019 at the request of his son-in-law, Justin Chase, Wood donated his time and money to the Sheridan Softball Association making and selling breakfast burritos at an adult slo-pitch softball tournament. The money went back to the softball association to support future events. While Wood lost his son-in-law to COVID a few years back, he remains behind the grill for the cause. This year, Wood made and sold over 100 breakfast burritos and grilled from 7am until the final out was made each night cooking a few hundred hamburgers and hot dogs at the Justin Chase Memorial Softball Tournament. Wood, currently a Sheridan City Councilor,  is also a member of the Sheridan AARP Community Action Team. The finalists for the 2024 Andrus Award included Patricia Naumoff of Star Valley Ranch, Cheyenne’s Bryce and Pam Freeman, as well as Wood. The final vote to determine the Andrus Award was held measuring social media activity, as well as an online vote. Wood collected 60% of a tight vote.
  
• Sheridan’s Judy Hayworth was AARP Wyoming’s 2023 Andrus Award winner after volunteering all over her native Sheridan County. At The WYO Theater Judy is an usher, a ticket, taker, and cleaner of the theater. As a part of the Sheridan Memorial Hospital’s Auxiliary, last year she helped decorate 18 Christmas trees located at the hospital, as well as medical clinics; helped with mailings for the hospital, such as Christmas cards; and helped plan the annual five year old birthday party. As a volunteer in the Sheridan Memorial Hospital’s surgical waiting room, she gets coffee, makes calls on behalf of the families at the hospitals, and even brings goodies. As a volunteer for CASA, Hayworth is assigned to work with children from the time they enter the legal system until they are, hopefully, reunited with their families. That means being a friend, a lunch partner, a sports fan and a source of strength.

• 2022 AARP Wyoming Andrus Award Winner Bernadette. “Bernie” Horst is a familiar face around Albany County, volunteering at The Albany County Library, The Wyoming Women’s Club; the Laramie Plains Museum, and Wyoming Women’s History Museum. Horst is perhaps best known for her work at the Eppson Center, where she remains active at the Eppson Center where she volunteers to update the grounds of the center by doing landscaping and decorating tables according to a monthly theme. For ten years, Horst has been a member of the Home Delivered Meals, delivering warm meals to those who are homebound or not able to cook for themselves. The University of Wyoming’s St. Paul Newman’s Center benefits from Horst’s efforts as she bakes snacks for students as they study for finals, contributes desserts for some Sunday night dinners St. Newman’s hosts for students.Horst also volunteers with the Laramie Women’s Club, The Wyoming Women’s History House, and PEO.
  
• In 2021, Torrington’s Paul Novak was named the AARP Wyoming Andrus Award winner for his better than 40 years on the Goshen Care Center Joint Powers Board of Directors. Since joining the Joint Powers Board, Novak has been a driving force in helping Torrington build a 24-unit Independent Living Facility; a skilled nursing home and dementia care unit with 75 rooms; and a 30-room assisted living facility, which opened in October of 2021. An extremely impressive array of care options and housing for older adults in a community of 6,700 residents.
  
• Don Cushman was the 2020 AARP Wyoming Andrus Award winner. After retiring 15 years ago, Cushman took a trip to Mississippi with the Presbytery of Wyoming to help repair homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina. That experience led Cushman to make a commitment to work more consistently with Habitat for Humanity in Teton County. Cushman began driving the 55 miles each way, often twice a week (4,500 miles) to build sites in Teton County, which has culminated in its current effort, a five-year, six-building run. He has been named the Turnkey Award - given to the volunteer with the highest number of volunteer hours on a project - numerous times, and was named Habitat’s Lee Kuntz Volunteer of The Year Award winner for the Rocky Mountain Region in 2016. 

• The 2019 Andrus Award winners, Karen and Walter Jones, spend their retirement years volunteering with the National Park Service in Grand Teton National Park. For four months out of the year, the Jones’ live in their camper and devote their time to ensuring that the visitors of the park have a fulfilling and educational visit. Their duties with the park include talks about bear safety, animal information, and cultural history. They can be found answering questions at the desk or out on the hiking trails.

• When the rules committee was making up those rules, it almost seems they had 2018 Andrus Award Winner, Kay Bjorklund of Thermopolis, in mind. Well into her 90’s, Kay remained a Chamber of Commerce Ambassador, welcoming new businesses to Thermopolis, as well as program director for her Kiwanis Club, lining up speakers for the club’s twice-monthly meetings. One week a month you can find Kay delivering Meals on Wheels to Thermopolis residents. Each weekend she is acting activities director for The Pioneer Home, where she lines up Wii Bowling tournaments and shuffleboard. Kay would also mention she carries a 231 average on Wii bowling. If that isn’t enough, she also volunteers one day a week in the gift shop of the hospital in Thermopolis, and works with the doorstep ministry of her church.
  
• Clayton and Gloria Jensen were honored as winners of the 2017 Andrus Award by AARP Wyoming. The Jensens are the coaches at the Casper Boxing Club in Casper where they have gained a reputation for changing the lives of at-risk young men and women. The mission of Casper Boxing Club is to promote sportsmanship, responsibility, integrity, loyalty, and individuality through education, dedication, desire, and a commitment to maximize excellence. The program seeks to use the mind and body as a catalyst to bring about change, creating an environment to reach youth who others may have written off as unreachable.