The Town Crier announces the 2021 Ernie Maxwell Community Spirit Award nominees. They are Marsha Kennedy, Robert “Bob” Romano, and Mara Schoner and Mark Yardas.

Please keep the following in mind when you vote: The individual should have demonstrated a tangible, perhaps physical, effect on the community. The honor is given to an individual or group who represents EMax’s spirit of community and volunteerism. Prior awardees took actions that created a spark sufficient to bring others into the fray just as Maxwell did with his activities involving the environment.

Ballots need to be submitted by 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 15. To help you decide who to vote for, we compiled all the amazing things that were written about each nominee, in the EMax spirit, of course.

Marsha Kennedy: A resident for just nine years, Marsha has been active in making Idyllwild a better and safer place to live.

Kennedy founded the theater troupe Stratford Players in Hemet and brought it to the Hill with her when she relocated. Stratford has presented live theater, including the works of William Shakespeare, to hundreds of local residents and visitors. Its annual Christmas show has become a tradition that many look forward to.

Most of Kennedy’s volunteer work revolves around the health and safety of the greater Idyllwild area. She began as a vice president of Mountain Disaster Preparedness but then moved on to address critical needs wherever she saw them.

Her most significant work has been as the founder and head of Idyllwild Snow Group, created in 2017 to address various issues presented by ever-increasing snowplay visitor activity. Kennedy gathered together a group of concerned residents to find solutions to traffic and safety problems. She held meetings with the heads of several state and county agencies, including State Park officials, the Riverside County Sheriff’s office and the California Highway Patrol. The accomplishments and ongoing activities of the Snow Group are too many to list here but include the development of five formal snowplay areas on the Hill, establishing and enforcing a number of “no parking” zones, increasing law enforcement presence on the Hill during snow events, and educating locals and visitors on key safety issues via print (including the Town Crier) and online.

Kennedy designed and hosts the website Idyllwild Snow and the Facebook page Idyllwild Snow for Locals. The visitor-oriented Idyllwild Snow is particularly popular, receiving over a million hits in 2020.

Kennedy has been active online in other ways. Working mostly online, Kennedy, partnering with Shannon Ng, organized a Christmas event they called the Holiday Driveby Decorating Extravaganza, where residents were encouraged to dress up their homes in holiday glory and others were invited to come by in their cars for viewings. This brought some fun to an otherwise celebration-free COVID Christmas.

Kennedy was instrumental in bringing the COVIDvaccine to Idyllwild. Riverside County Mobile Vaccine units have now made four convoys up the Hill (a fifth and sixth are in the works), largely due to her urging and organizational efforts. Well over 400 Idyllwilders have already been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 through this program.

Kennedy does not make a penny for any of this and, so far, has received little recognition. I believe that a nomination for the Ernie Maxwell Community Spirit Award is more than appropriate.

Bob Romano: The person who nominated Romano wrote that he has been the driving force behind the local Forest Service Volunteer Association’s growth and impact. Romano joined the FSVA as a wilderness ranger in 1998 and he became the FSVA wilderness coordinator in 2001. Under his leadership as the wilderness ranger coordinator, the FSVA has grown in the number of active volunteers from three active wilderness rangers to over 30 people.

He has been a volunteer with the organization for 22 years and been involved with volunteer training, Leave No Trace ethics and education for volunteers and visitors, Tahquitz Peak volunteer and coordinator, preparing agreements between the Forest Service and FSVA, outreach and education programs for the local mountain communities, scheduling volunteer wilderness rangers, monitoring for illegal campfires and helping out at the fire call center in San Bernardino during numerous fire incidents.

In 2010, Romano became the president of FSVA’s board of directors. He received a USDA Special Recognition award in 2005.

Mara Schoner and Mark Yardas: In 2017, longtime Idyllwild residents Mark Yardas and Mara Schoner launched the nonprofit Idyllwild Forest Health Project. IFHP’s mission is to promote thriving forests in the San Jacinto Mountains through community education, advocacy and researching ecologically sound, financially sustainable forest management practices.

Following the economic shutdown from COVID-19, the two saw community members struggling to feed and care for themselves due to the financial impact of the virus and/or health concerns about safety when going shopping. In response to the growing crisis, they launched the Mountain Communities Mutual Aid group as a project under the IFHP nonprofit umbrella. MCMA provides healthy foods, essential goods and services to our mountain community members.

MCMA supplies about 100 boxes to community members each week. The group has grown to 450 members and distributed more than 1,600 food boxes.

That’s a little information about each nominee. Please remember to get your ballot (on page A4) into the Town Crier by Oct. 15. The winner will be announced in the Oct. 21 edition of the Town Crier and their name will be added to a plaque in the Town Crier office. Good luck to all of the nominees.