After a lifetime of serving the community as volunteers, two Good Samaritans were rewarded with honours brought by Westlock-St. Paul MP Brian Storseth.
It came as no surprise when Westlock County reeve Charles Navratil and Bill Seatter were each presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for their outstanding contributions to the community at county council chambers on April 2.
“Community volunteers like Charles and William have spent their whole lives giving back to the community,” said Storseth after presenting the awards.
“Time is the most rare thing we have in today’s society and these are people who have given up their time for this community, and I think that’s the neatest part about it.”
According to the Alberta government, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal honours Her Majesty’s service to our country. It also honours significant contributions and achievements by Canadians.
“It’s the volunteers that make small communities as beautiful as they are and it’s mostly the spirit of volunteers that does it,” Storseth said. “It was an honour to present these awards. In seeing the applications, these are two very worthy individuals. They both have had literally 20 or 30 years of volunteer service.”
And while the volume of their contributions speak volumes within the community, both recipients were extremely modest about receiving the awards.
“I think there are other people in the area that probably deserve this award just as much or more than I do,” Navatril said. “We’ve got a lot of good volunteer people like Mr. Seatter and Sheila Trueblood who have worked in this community all of their lives. I’m really happy they have received the awards to.”
