Longtime Nevada City resident Susan Barry has been selected as recipient of the 36th Annual Col. William H. “Bill” Lambert Award, which is presented each year as part of Nevada City’s Constitution Day Celebration.
The prestigious Lambert Award is given annually by the Famous Marching Presidents of Nevada City in recognition of outstanding contributions to the community. The award is named in honor of the late Col. William H. Lambert, founder of Nevada City’s annual Constitution Day Parade.
“The Famous Marching Presidents are proud to honor Susan Barry for her half century of community activism for people of all ages,” said Marching Presidents founder and former Nevada City mayor David Parker.
Parker will present the award on Sunday, Sept. 20, at the Marching Presidents banquet following the 60th Annual Constitution Day Parade. Accompanied by two Uncle Sams,
Barry will lead the Presidents down Broad Street in the annual procession. The parade begins at 2pm.
Barry, a native of Hawthorne in Southern California, moved to Nevada City in 1971, a location she and her former husband found perfect for their mail order business, Black Forest Enterprises, later Snow Goose Products, which manufactured and sold down jackets and sleeping bags.
Over the years, she has been active in many programs that have enriched life in the community. She helped establish Nevada County’s first recycling programs, programs and art camps for local children and outdoor watercolor painting programs for adults in the Sierra. More recently she has helped organize events for the Roaming Angels Car Club.
In the 1980s, she assisted Parker in the formation of the community’s first adult flag football and volleyball leagues and later participated in the Famous Marching Presidents where she portrayed First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
“I’m very honored,” she said of the Lambert award. “Bill Lambert and David Parker have both been great influences in my life. “For me living in Nevada City is being part of a special group.”
The Marching Presidents is a fun-loving and educational group that portrays all 47 U.S. Presidents with reverence, good humor and varying degrees of historical accuracy. For reliable information on U.S. Presidents, see www.americanpresident.org.
Past Lambert Recipients
Past Lambert Award recipients are the late city manager Beryl P. Robinson Jr., former mayor and city clerk Cathy Wilcox-Barnes, longtime parade organizers George and Pat Harper, former mayor Pat Dyer, the late real estate broker Jim Mackey, local writer Dave Carter, former Chamber of Commerce executive manager Cathy Whittlesey, former mayor Steve Cottrell, businessman Bob Buhlis, the late Nevada County general services director Dennis Cassella, John Christensen, a leader of community efforts to establish the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum; cartoonist R.L. “Crabman” Crabb, business owners Lee and Susan Thurston, retired Nevada City public works director Verne Taylor, the late historian Edwin Tyson, the late folksinger/activist U Utah Phillips, former city engineer Bill Falconi, Marching Presidents organizer Patti Foster, retired school administrator Karen Chizek, the late musician Mikail Graham, the late county librarian Madelyn Helling, local builder Gary Tintle, former mayors Paul Matson and Reinette Senum, Nevada City Film Festival Director Jesse Locks, Nevada City musician and producer Paul Emery, homeless advocates Joanna Robinson and Cindy Maple, former Grass Valley mayor Howard Levine, real estate broker Charlie Brock, local attorney Fran Cole, real estate broker Jon Blinder, performing arts leader John Deaderick, river scientist Joanne Hild, civic leaders Ken and Kay Baker and homeless advocate Tom Durkin. Marching Presidents founder David Parker was honored with the group’s 20th anniversary award.