Peg Raney, in accepting the 2017 Above and Beyond the Call (ABC) Award Friday evening, saluted all previous recipients of the award. “I am shocked and honored. I know who has received this honor before for many years, and I admire every single one of them. To be counted among those who have that kind of respect really means a lot to me,” she said through tears.
One of the nominations described Raney as “a gentle leader with a skill that makes people want to step up to the plate and join her on the train of success.” Another nomination form described her as “a kind and caring, knowledgeable leader in the community.”
Raney taught in the Greene County Schools (then Jefferson and Jefferson-Scranton) for 22 years and for the Paton-Churdan Schools for six years. She retired from teaching in 2011. She also did a three-year stint as director of the Jefferson Area Chamber of Commerce in the early 1990s.
She has served volunteer roles as a 4-H leader, a member of the Greene County Extension home ec committee, a board member of the Bell Tower Community Foundation, a member and then chairman of the Relay for Life of Greene County event leadership team, and as board secretary of Grow Greene County. She has shared her musical talent as a guitar-playing song leader in the St Joseph guitar group and around the community, and is a member and past president of PEO.
Raney’s daughter Heather Spooner, Carole Custer, Rick Morain and Jamie Daubediek praised her during the award presentation.
Spooner said her mother’s efforts inspired her and her siblings to contribute to their communities. She said her siblings have seen her mother go “above and beyond time and time again, and know she wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Custer is president of the Bell Tower Community Foundation. She enumerated Raney’s efforts on behalf of that group, comparing her to the Energizer Bunny, saying Raney keeps going and going and going and has great stamina. Raney has been involved with the Bell Tower Community Foundation for decades. She coordinated writing the successful Vision Iowa grant that kick-started fundraising for the completion of the carillon in time for the tower’s 50th anniversary, and then orchestrated the 50th anniversary celebration.
Morain spoke of Raney’s efforts promoting the referendum on gaming in the county, and then the campaign to secure a gaming license from the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission. After the approval of the license she became a board member of Grow Greene County and has served as board secretary. “She had been an extremely valuable member of the whole team for Grow Greene County, both pre-vote and after-vote,” Morain said.
Daubendiek spoke on behalf of Jefferson Matters: Main Street. He said Raney demonstrates a “can do” attitude toward every project the group undertakes. He called her ability to recruit people “inspiring.”
The award was presented at Greene County Chamber and Tourism’s annual meeting at the Rotary Room at the Jefferson municipal golf course clubhouse.
