(PHOTO PROVIDED / THE VILLAGE REPORTER)
FACE OF THE COMMUNITY … Brenda Shoemaker has been named Fayette’s 2024 Citizen of the Year. Her involvement in everything from the village council to the community development corporation and the garden club has made her a central part of the village throughout the last several decades.
By: Jesse Davis
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
jesse@thevillagereporter.com
Fayette fixture Brenda Shoemaker has been named the village’s 2024 Citizen Of The Year in what appears to be a surprise to no one but herself.
A resident of Fayette for the past 36 years, Shoemaker described herself first as a wife of 32 years with three children, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren with another on the way.
Despite growing up in the Perrysburg area, Shoemaker moved to Long Island, New York, and never imagined she would return to the Ohio countryside. But in 1988, she moved to Fayette.
“If you told me I was moving from a metropolitan area to a little tiny town, I’d have said ‘What do you mean, the grocery closes at 8 o’clock?'”
Not only did Shoemaker return, but she became a cornerstone of the local community – a longtime attendee turned member of the village council, member of the community development corporation, treasurer of the garden club, board member of the fine arts council, and member of the Bull Thistle Arts Festival committee, among other involvement.
And yet getting the call that she had been selected as the citizen of the year still took Shoemaker by surprise.
“I thought they were pranking me, they said I was in trouble. All I was doing was working, I wasn’t in town long enough to get in trouble,” she joked.
“They said it’s been voted on and we decided you’re the citizen of the year. I said, ‘Oh baloney, I am not.’ I was going to hang up, and they said ‘No, no, no, seriously, you really are the citizen of the year.'” Shoemaker said she had no idea she’d even been nominated.
“She always makes time for anybody and everybody that needs something,” Fayette Mayor David Borer said.
“She even makes cookies for the neighborhood kids. They stop at her house on the way to school or on the way home, and she has cookies she hands out to them.”
He recalled that she had attended nearly every village council meeting just as a resident, asking good questions and making good recommendations, before a sudden vacancy on the council led to her appointment.
She went on to win a reelection bid last November and is now serving a four-year term. Borer said Shoemaker is a huge asset to the community and to the village council, that she’s always willing to listen and do the right thing. “She’s an incredibly nice lady,” he said. More than that, he said, she’s everywhere.
“I don’t know how she does it. I meet her on the road all the time in between places,” Borer said. “I could be heading to Morenci, to Archbold, to Wauseon, and I meet her on the way when I stop. She’s out and about every place.”
Speaking on the phone from Normal Grove Park Thursday evening, Borer said Shoemaker was also there, getting ready for her pre-Bull Thistle work on Friday.
She said she is making enough coleslaw and baked beans for 400 people, and that she will also be serving chicken for the duration of the festival after being featured in the parade that morning.
“It’s really an honor to be chosen,” she said. “It was unexpected, and I really want to do the very best I can for the community. Hopefully, I have a positive impact.”
“Like I said, I really am honored for the fact that I was recognized just for doing things I think are good for the community.”
Shoemaker said you can’t sit around and complain about things if you’re not willing to do anything to make it better, that you have to be willing to change something if you want things to be different, and it’s not always comfortable.
Borer put it plainly. “Every town needs a Brenda Shoemaker,” he said.
~HOMETOWN FEATURE~