Cheyenne’s Simineo is Named Community Service Award Winner for Wyoming

Courtesy Charlie Simineo

Cheyenne’s Charlie Simineo was named the 2022 Eddie Wadda Community Service Award winner for 2022 by AARP Wyoming this week. Simineo will be honored at AARP Wyoming’s Volunteer Summit in Casper on Oct. 14 for his service. 

Eddie Wadda Community Service

The AARP Community Contact Award was renamed the Eddie Wadda Community Service Award in 2012 in honor of former AARP Wyoming volunteer Eddie Wadda, a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe and an outstanding AARP Community Volunteer. Wadda was a great example of the power of volunteers who are willing to work for those in their community.

Of course, when AARP Wyoming tried to contact Simineo to tell him he was the Community Service Award winner, he wasn’t home. He was volunteering to prepare absentee ballots to be sent out for the 2022 General Election in Laramie County. 

It is just one example of Simineo’s volunteering around the Capitol City. Here’s the short list of his efforts: 

• Simineo is the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Site Coordinator at the Laramie County Senior Center, who also helps out filling out income tax forms for the program at Laramie County Community College. 
• He is a community service member of the Wyoming State Bar‘s Fee Arbitration Panel
• A Laramie County Election Judge for early voting and Site Coordinator for the North Cheyenne Christian Church Polling Place.
• Simineo teaches three classes on Medicare, Medicare Drugs, Medigap, Long Term Care Insurance, and Medicare Advantage at Laramie County Community College.  This is his 14th year of offering the courses three times per year. 
• Facilitator for GriefShare which is a 13-week Christian based Grief Support Group, which he headed up after the death of his wife. He is currently on my 24th cycle of facilitating this worthwhile grief support group.
• Finally, Simineo is the Wyoming delegate to the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel. This panel requires a three-year commitment to the IRS in hopes of improving the user experience with the IRS and requires between 200-300 hours of time spent.

Simineo grew up in Western Colorado and was a nursing home administrator before moving to Cheyenne where he would work for the Alzheimer’s Association, Wyoming Guardianship; Wyoming Senior Citizens Inc.; and for the Wyoming Department of Health as the state director of healthcare licensure and certification. Simineo retired in 2018 and started volunteering soon after.

“I enjoy giving and helping people live their best life,” he says. “It just fills a need for me.”

For Simineo, he says each of his volunteer efforts appeal to different areas of his interest and need to help others. He started doing taxes 12 years ago. He says he took a tax accounting class in college and looks at the process as a puzzle. He began volunteering with the grief share program after the loss of his wife. During his time at Wyoming Senior Citizens Inc. and the Wyoming State Health Insurance Information Program he saw the need to educate older adults on Medicare and the options available to them. That led to his outreach through Laramie County Community College, which includes a three-class course on Medicare, Medigap, Long term Care, Medicare Advantage Plans and more.

“First, it was just kind of an overview on the original Medicare programs and gradually, I realized people needed much more in-depth information,” Simineo says. “For the last several years I’ve taught three, two-part classes on the parts of Medicare, and Medigap, and long term care coverage, and now Medicare Advantage is incorporated into the third class.”

When not volunteering, Simineo enjoys backpacking and playing the piano.