The Preston Trail NSDAR conducted an awards banquet on May 18, 2017. The chapter honored the DAR Good Citizen, DAR Scholarship Winner, and Unsung Heroes in the community.
Each year, the Preston Trail NSDAR Chapter awards a Good Citizen Award. The Judges who selected the winner are Judge, Bill Magers, Nancy Powers, Pastor, St. Johns and Gail Utter.
The winner of the 2017 DAR Good Citizen Award was Kinley Taylor Ives. She is also a member of the Bells softball team who won the 2A State Championship against Shiner this season. These local award winners are then eligible to win State and National Good Citizen Award with the possibility of a $5,000 scholarship.
The Preston Trail chapter offers a cash college scholarship annually. This year’s recipient was Bao Catteau, a Senior at Denison High School. He was also their Valedictorian (1/235) and a Socrates scholar, a “Top Ten-Percenter.” Bao was selected based on his excellent grades, references from his teachers, family and friends, his community service work, and the two-page essay he wrote about one of his family members who had served in the U.S. Military and what that service meant to him. This year’s award was in the amount of $2,000. He was active in athletics and was Varsity Captain his senior year in tennis. Bao was President of the National Honor Society. He was awarded the Bausch & Lomb Honorary Science Award, the Academic All-State Elite Award, and Wendy’s High School Heisman. He was the principle tutor for the after -school tutoring program, and he was very active in his church helping with Vacation Bible School, Christian Theater Workshop, volunteering with Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Meals on Wheels, Helping Hands, Habitat for Humanity, Heart to Heart Hospice, as well as traveling with a Disaster Relief Response Team to aid in relief for tornado victims.
The Preston Trail Chapter scholarship application form can be found online at this address:
http://www.texasdar.org/chapters/PrestonTrail/images/Scholarship.pdf
Unsung Hero, Carol Singletary was honored for her dedication to the needs of women and families in her community. She works very closely with the charitable programs at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Denison. This ministry stands in constant need of donations and volunteers to help the many needy people of our area, so check with them to find out how you can help.
Bill & Martha Neyman were honored as Unsung Heroes for their love and desire to serve the Veterans of this area and this great nation. They are representatives for Soldier’s Angels – a group that wants no soldier to be forgotten. They send letters and packages to all the war zones. They volunteer at the Bonham VA to help provide clothing for veterans who have none. They, with the help of others, have furnished apartments for some of the veterans that choose to remain in our area.
One of the chapter’s foremost areas of service is to America’s veterans. The entire Preston Trail chapter participates in fundraisers that fund a program called “Opening Doors for Disabled Veterans,” which remodels the bathrooms of disabled veterans of Grayson County so they will become handicap accessible. The Preston Trail Chapter members also volunteer extensively at the Bonham VA Hospital. An award went to Jonnie Templeton who takes her sewing machine to Bonham nearly every Tuesday to alter clothing for veterans in their drug and alcohol program who come in with nothing. Jonnie makes sure they have a bag full of clothes that fit when they leave the program.
Would you like to be involved in the good works that DAR participates in? Anyone interested in receiving help to prove their ancestry for qualification to become a Daughter of the American Revolution are welcome to contact our chapter at www.facebook.com/PrestonTrailNSDARPottsboroTX75076 on Facebook or www.DAR.org.
The Preston Trail Chapter of the DAR next meets September 21st and thereafter through May on the first Thursday of the month at 5pm for snacks and fellowship and at 6pm for chapter meetings and programs. There is no meeting in December. The meeting location is at the Georgetown Baptist Church north of Pottsboro at 207 Georgetown Road.
The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890 to promote historic preservation, education and patriotism. Its members are descended from the patriots who won American independence during the Revolutionary War. With more than 177,000 members in approximately 3,000 chapters worldwide, DAR is one of the world’s largest and most active service organizations. DAR members are committed to volunteer service having served more than 12.5 million hours in communities throughout the world during the past three years. To learn more about the work of today’s DAR, visit www.DAR.org or connect with DAR on social media at facebook.com/TodaysDAR, twitter.com/TodaysDAR and youtube.com/TodaysDAR.