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Bob Wood & Ray Spade were honored with the Spirit of the Eagle Award for a lifetime of service to the community and it's
families that is reflective of so many others in our valley.
You can read their profiles in the 2006 Fair Booklet but this is what I want you to remember. They married well. They
had kids. Their children had children. Through the generations that they have created there is a link to values and virtues
that are vanishing in America.
These men, with their wives, have been instrumental in enhancing and elevating 4-H, the fair, the fairgounds, and everything
positive that grows from families participating in raising, growing, and creating. The younger ones learn to take pride in
a solid work ethic, to pitch in, to care for living creatures and to socialize within the extended family which is community.
Certainly there are many people from the Gollen's, McNall's, Wood's, Naccarato's, Bandy's, or Anselmo's families and many
more that would appropriately be honored in this way. The award is emblematic. It is too big for one name - it is meant
to be a representative of the many.
2006 Grand Marshall is Bob Wood and 2006 Volunteer of the Year is Ray Spade. They are appropriate and timely recipients
of this honor. Bob & Bernice, Ray & Mary Jane and their 16 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren will be at the
2006 Fair telling stories about fairs gone by, celebrating this year's fair, and looking down the road for the ones that are
yet to come.
Their lives and how they have spent their days is a lesson to all of us about cherishing what we have instead of worrying
about what we do not possess. Thank you for being an example to us all.
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