OPAL Housing Awards Given to Joe & Kathi Ciskowski, Wally Gudgell

Penny Sharp Sky and Allen Smith spoke movingly of Orcas Island history and lifestyle when they gave out the feel-good awards that came at the close of the  OPAL (Of People and Land) Community Trust meeting yesterday.

Penny Sharp Sky gives the Sky Award to Joe and Kathi Ciskowski at the OPAL Annual Meeting on April 30

Joe and Kathi Ciskowski won the Sky Award for volunteer service that builds and sustains community, given annually to those who have contributed significant volunteer service in support of building and sustaining community on Orcas Island. Penny Sharp Sky noted the contributions the Ciskowskis have made in education and athletics, in particular the Primary Intervention Program at Orcas Island elementary school, where Joe and Kathi have volunteered since its beginning. Joe’s woodworking skills, making the table in the OPAL conference room and fashioning a commemorative bowl from the recently downed “Monkey Tree,” were hailed, as was Kathi’s more recent involvment in genealogy and life stories. Joe’s Science Wizard persona at the Funhouse Science Fairs and Kathi’s glittery golden “Art Car” (now the “Art Car Sculpture”) are also ways in which the Ciskowskis are “so present in the life of the island,” said Sharp-Sky.

Kathi Ciskowski thanked the group for the award, saying she was honored in particular to think of all the people who have lived in OPAL’s affordable housing communities. Joe Ciskowski invoked the memory of his father, who would be 94 years old today, and who publicly advocated the cause of fair housing in Florida in the days when discriminatory housing was routine: Joe accepted the award in his honor.

When Allen Smith took the podium to announce the winner of the Peter Fisher Award for dedication to the cause of fair housing on Orcas Island, he started his comments by saying, “Wally Gudgell is an intriguing winner for the award, for everyone knows Wally as a major player in real estate in the San Juan Islands.”

Wally Gudgell, right, reads the Fisher Award commendation with Allen Smith

The Fisher Award, given for the past 19 years to individuals and organizations who have provided inspiration, dedication and unceasing service in the cause of fair housing, is given this year to Gudgell in great part because of his “ferocious love and protectiveness for the island and its people,” Smith said.

Commending Gudgell for his service on boards and commissions to foster the creation of housing opportunities for people with lower incomes,  Smith added that Gudgell “understands affordable housing is an issue no matter who you are… the people who live in affordable housing make life possible for his clients.

“Wally Gudgell has been able to make good business out of a necessity, and shown it is possible to do well by doing good.”

Gudgell accepted the award saying, “I am honored and humbled. Thank you very much.”

Past honorees for the Fisher Award include Peter Fisher, Jeanne Beck, Sam Haines, Michael Sky, Patricia Pomeroy, Dick Arnold, John Campbell, Fred Klein, Darcie Nielsen, Mary Ellen Gaylord, Tina Rose, Alan Roochvarg, Circle of the Spirit/Lahari Hospice and Respite Care, Laurie Drake, Paul Losleben, Bob Gamble, and Mary Blackstone.

Past honorees of the Sky Award include Anita Holladay, Che Blaine, Patrick Bennett, David and Lina McPeake, Jim Bredouw, Leslie Seaman, Didier Gincig, Robin Woodward, Orcas Island Chapter of Key Club International, Julie Miller, Monique and Bill Gincig, Libby Blackwell, Velma Doty, and Janet Brownell and Lance Evans.