ELLENVILLE – The Noonday Club is getting two for the price of one, as they've named Dick and Pat Peters as 2008's Citizen(s) of the Year. Each year, the civic organization chooses someone (or in this case two) to recognize for their outstanding service and work for the betterment of the community. In some cases, the choice is based on particular achievements made over the course of the previous year, but more often than not, it's based on a lifetime's worth of work.

"It's almost like making it into the Baseball Hall of Fame," says Jeff Kaplan, chairman of the Noonday Club's Citizen of the Year Committee. "Nobody's going to make it into the hall of fame on one great season. You have to have a career."

And what a career in this case — Dick and Pat Peters have been serving the communities of Ellenville, Cragsmoor, and Wawarsing at large for decades, though each in their own way.

Dick has been a longtime member of the Noonday Club, and served twice as the organization's president. In addition, he's been a member of the Cragsmoor Fire Department for over 40 years, currently serving as commissioner, has served on the Ellenville Regional Hospital Board, is currently a member of the Hospital's Foundation Board, and has been a member of the Cragsmoor Association.

Pat's emphasis has been on the area's school district and the education of the community's children. She served on the Ellenville Central School District's school board going back to 1973, and stayed on the board for 24 years during a time when the district was going through many different problems and controversies (during this period, the board held 19 budget votes in only nine years, since the budget was so often defeated). Following that, Pat joined the BOCES board, serving there for 15 years. And as a registered nurse, Pat established the Natural Foods section of Peters Market, acting as the nutritional guide to health-conscious customers, even offering her home phone number as a resource to those who want to pick her brain about how to live healthy outside of store-hours.

Furthermore, the two have run Peters Market for 38 years, and have opened the store up to different community organizations for fundraisers throughout the years. One recent example was the Second Annual Supermarket Sweep to benefit the Cragsmoor Library. When it was discovered that the beneficiary of the sweep's $500 worth of groceries would be Family of Ellenville, Dick offered to simply pack whatever items they needed for their organization and bring the groceries over himself.

"It humbled us," says Dick of the organization's recognition of him and his wife. "We're very honored, because we can't think of any one thing that we've done that anyone else hasn't done."

The dinner honoring Dick and Pat Peters is being held at the Honor's Haven Resort on Tuesday, September 15. The cocktail hour begins at 5:30 p.m., and dinner follows at 6:30 p.m. The price of admission is $43, and tickets can be bought by calling Jeff Kaplan's office at 647-4110, or by calling Fran Wolf at 647-8020.