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Past award recipient praises Weyburn Quota’s aim to recognize women

A past winner of the Women of the Year Award for community service, Linda Rudachyk, was pleased and honoured to have won, and praises the awards as a valuable way to recognize women for what they do in the community.
Linda Rudachyk

A past winner of the Women of the Year Award for community service, Linda Rudachyk, was pleased and honoured to have won, and praises the awards as a valuable way to recognize women for what they do in the community. (She is shown above during a recent back to Weyburn, at the Festival of Trees in December)

She won her award in the very first year the awards were held, in 2000, after she was nominated by the Ukrainian dance organization, and by the board of the Family Place.

“It was very humbling,” said Rudachyk. “I don’t like to take the spotlight. … I always took it for the team.”

In addition to the Family Place, at that time she was also involved with Weyburn Big Brothers and Big Sisters, and with the Humane Society, as well as being involved with activities for her daughter Susan, such as Brownies.

“It was very nice to be acknowledged,” said Rudachyk, who noted there were some very worthy people around who could also have been nominated, such as Sister Benedicta, “so I was very surprised I had won.”

Part of the honour for Linda was that the Lieutenant Governor at the time was there as a guest speaker, Lynda Haverstock, a woman who was one of her heroes, plus Linda’s whole family was there for the awards luncheon.

“Cassie was a baby then, five months old, and Lynda took her and walked around holding her for the rest of the time,” said Linda of her younger daughter, noting this was a favourite memory from that event.

“I remember when they were announcing they were going to have these awards. I think it’s extremely valuable, because sometimes women tend to be forgotten because some of their work isn’t as flashy. There’s so much good work behind the scenes that women do that needs to be recognized,” she said.

There were women she had nominated from her church for the work that they did behind the scenes, and said by having this process of nominations, they were able to be recognized.

“That gave us the opportunity to recognize them whether they won or not. They were honoured by being nominated,” she added, noting she was involved on the judging committee for Quota for a couple of years, and during this time they introduced the award for a young woman of distinction.

“That was really good, and I always nominated someone for that,” said Rudachyk. “I have very good memories from those awards.”

Nominations for this year’s Women of the Year Awards are open, with a deadline of Friday, March 6. The awards will be presented at a luncheon gala on Wednesday, April 8, at McKenna Hall, and Weyburn’s own Tenille Arts will be the guest speaker before she performs that evening for the Weyburn Concert Series at the Cugnet Centre.

Nominations are open in four categories: the Weyburn Credit Union Workplace Excellence award; the M. Isabelle Butters Quota International of Weyburn Community Service award; the Access Communications Exceptional Entrepreneur award; and the Harbourfront Wealth Management Young Woman of Distinction award.

Nomination forms are available on the Weyburn Review website, at www.weyburnreview.com, or hard copies of the forms are available at the retail reception desk at Weyburn Credit Union.