Anne Nesbit Named Key Peninsula Citizen of the Year

Ted Olinger

Award winner Anne Nesbit.

The Key Peninsula Lions Club honored local resident Anne Nesbit with its 33rd annual Key Peninsula Citizen of the Year Award at a ceremony banquet March 18 at the KP Civic Center in Vaughn.

The award both acknowledges the achievements of KP residents and highlights the importance of volunteering. Club members accept nominations from the community and vote by secret ballot to determine the winner. Nesbit had been nominated three times before receiving the award this year.

Lions Club President Hal Wolverton said, “I know Anne fairly well, but as I was announcing the award and reading the list of her work, even I was surprised by how much she does.”

Nesbit grew up in California, where she was a middle school teacher for 15 years. She moved to the KP in 2006 with her family and worked as a paraeducator and volunteer at Evergreen Elementary School, which her two children attended, and later worked as an emergency room tech at St. Anthony Hospital. She became a volunteer firefighter and medical responder in 2008 and is now the volunteer battalion chief and is in charge of training recruits. The department hired her as an administrative assistant in 2012. Nesbit is also the executive director of the Key Peninsula Free Clinic, works as a trainer for teachers of the statewide public school youth mental health curriculum, speaks at schools about suicide and youth violence prevention, and is a Safe Sitter class instructor.

“She was also instrumental in bringing our citizen CPR program back to the community and she coordinates the Santa Sleigh at Christmastime,” Wolverton said. “She’s quite an amazing person.”

Nesbit was not at the ceremony to accept the award, but said later, “I don’t feel like I do anything different from the next guy. I do have the privilege to work with wonderful people in many different parts of the community though, and it is through our combined efforts that good things get done.”

Nesbit has two children, Matthew, 15, a freshman and distinguished water polo player at Peninsula High School, and Grace, 12, a sixth-grader at Key Peninsula Middle School, where she is one of only two girls on the wrestling team. Of her mother’s accomplishments, Grace said, “I always knew she’d do well.”