Nominees for Citizen of the Year announced

For the past 14 years, the Prince George Community Foundation (PGCF) has chosen one resident to be the Citizen of the Year.

To open the Canada Day festivities at Fort George Park, previous Citizen of the Year, Sharon Hurd, announced the nominees for 2011.

"I'm grateful to the PGCF for this honour that I received. People ask me what I did experience this year and I think the most important thing I experienced was the letters that I received from the people who acknowledged me. A lot of people don't get an opportunity to thank those that help them and I never do my work thinking I'm going to get help, I'm driven to the work I do from my own past," said Hurd on her experience as Citizen of the Year.

The 2011 nominees are Lorne Calder, Matthew Church, Ken Pendergast and Marvene Layte and Darrell Hubbell.

"We've had some really interesting people be nominated in the past. Some who have worked with sexually exploited children, we had a former sex-trade worker herself get nominated for all of the work she'd done in the community. So it's not about the nice and clean, all of the time. It's about the contribution to the community, we really stick true to that," said Murry Krause, chair of the PGCF nomination committee.

The PGCF is a volunteer-driven, charitable organization that facilitates fund development and putting resources back into the community. They hold two big events throughout the year, a golf tournament and the Citizen of the Year.

"The woman who nominated me has been kneeling on my neck for several years to get me to agree to be nominated ...I was on the nomination committee, so when she insisted that I had to be nominated, I had to get off the committee for two years and once this is all over, I can go back on the committee," said Hubbell.

The owner of Hubbell designer goldsmiths, says that it's about more than being the owner of a jewelry store for him, "the sign at the back of the store says, our purpose is to make the world a better place for each person who walks through our door. The jewelry [business] is just a vehicle to make that happen. We actually think that that the start of that is each person that comes in is a human being and the more we relate to people the better everyone is. That extends to everything, we give so much in donations that both my wife and my accountant get upset with me," said Hubbell.

The winner will be announced on October 21, 2011.