Covert ops create award night surprise

Last week Ryan Davis was honored with the Post Falls Citizen of the Year award. With homage to the late Paul Harvey, here’s the rest of the story.

The Citizen of the Year is selected from nominations from Chamber members and the community. A selection panel comprised of past award winners rate the nominees on the established criteria. If at all possible the winner is surprised when their name is called at the Chamber’s Annual Recognition gala.

In 2017 Jamé Davis was selected, which posed a challenge for the surprise part. She had just months before stepped into the role as President/CEO of the Chamber so would have access to the award write-ups and ordering of the award trophies.

I volunteered to call her husband, Ryan, and devise some covert ops to achieve the surprise aspect. We told Jamé that Ryan was receiving the award so she could ensure that family and close friends were in attendance. Of course, Ryan knew the real deal and likewise was doing covert ops on Jamé’s behalf, we went so far as to write a faux awards presentation for Ryan. It was an epic surprise on the night of the banquet when Jamé heard her own name announced for the award.

Fast forward to 2019 and Ryan is selected to receive the award. Jamé did covert ops payback and made sure that Ryan’s parents, Don and Lana Davis of Lewiston, were in attendance. They were “stashed” in the upstairs lounge at Red Lion Templin’s while the pre-awards dinner happened downstairs.

When they came downstairs before the awards presentation their cover story to Ryan was that they’d had doctor appointments in Post Falls that afternoon and Jamé invited them to come by for the event. For the couple hundred people in the room on Thursday night there was no doubt that Ryan was spectacularly surprised to hear his name announced.

Ryan and Jamé are two extraordinary people who have enhanced the quality of life for so many. In the three decades of the Citizen of the Year award, the Davises are the first husband and wife to have each received the highest honor the Post Falls community bestows annually.

And now you know the rest of the story.

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I remember exactly where I was 50 years ago on Feb. 1, 1969. My husband was at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., in Army basic training so I was living at home with my parents to await the birth of our first child. The winter of 1968-69 is still talked about in the winter record books for both snow and cold. Feb. 1 was the coldest day (-25) of the coldest winter in the past 25 years at that point. The snow berms on Sherman were several feet high, necessitating ribbons or bright orange Union 76 balls on car antennas.

I went into labor about midnight but it had snowed even more that day and all of our vehicles were snowed in on the circular driveway at the big house on Ninth and Sherman. My father was thinking we’d need to find someone with a snowmobile to take me to Kootenai Medical Center. Then Dad flagged down a city snow plow driver, convincing him to plow a car out of our driveway. He did.

So away we went, Alyssa arriving at 11:30 a.m. on the first day of the second month.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around being the mother of a 50-year-old but on the upside, Alyssa still has a darling baby face and doesn’t look her age. :)

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Happy birthday today to Jim Custer, Shannon Damiano, Mel Palmer, Sierra Graham, Brylee Dresser and Helen Sargent. Tomorrow Jennifer Alexander, Robert Brown, Cassidy Peacock (Sweet 16!), Sandy Scarlett, Erik Salvador, Linda Wolff, Mary Bell and Bernadette Myers celebrate. On the first day of February, my first born Alyssa Stromberg, Laura Little, Colleen Provost, Leslie Tibbs, Tonya Myers, Kristi Rietze, Susan Cook, Deedie Beard, James Ownbey (40!), Jesse Anglen and Jamie Benner will be doing the birthday dance. Donna Wemple, Randy Medlock, Chad VanBrunt and Seth Yost share Feb. 2 birthdays. Jackie Jameson, Leslie Damiano, Cindy Spence, Denise Lundy, Dawn Magness, Kay Burke, Howard Martinson (70!) and Donna Armbruster will mark Super Bowl Sunday birthdays. Gene Reed, Cindy Mead, Connie Johnson, Chariesse Gross and Nancy Wilson blow out their candles on Monday. Sharing Feb. 5 birthdays are Susan Jacobson, Sophie Medlock, Leslie Deubner, Sharon Anderson, Vicki Johnson and Jeanette Dunn.

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Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press and Kerri can be contacted on Facebook or via email mainstreet@cdapress.com.