2009 Environmental Awards Dinner
Top Honorees

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On Friday, May 8, Keep Pearland Beautiful celebrated with 260 members and guests at our Annual Environmental Awards Dinner. There were 43 students from our 4 middle schools and 23 individuals that were recognized that evening and presented with awards. The following are two of our top winners, although all of our winners are the “tops” in the eyes of KPB.

Stella Roberts Golden Pear Award
Our most prestigious award is the Stella Roberts Golden Pear award and is named after one of our founding members, Mrs. Stella Roberts. Her dedication and leadership helped make KPB the vibrant organization it is today. For that reason, KPB named its top award the Stella Roberts Golden Pear Award. This year’s Golden Pear Award winner is a previous award winner, a tireless worker when it comes to litter prevention and an avid recycler in Pearland. As a retired Brazoria County Sheriff, Dorman Davidson continues to make his mark on our community with countless hours of volunteer work. This year he really went beyond the call of duty by coordinating the Christmas tree recycling project that brought in over 1,300 trees for the beaches of Brazoria County. In addition to the Wal-Mart collection on the Saturday before Christmas, and with the help of KPB volunteers Andrew Miller and Stew Coffman, Dorman made collection runs to 6 different Home Depots in the area. As the trailer filled with trees at the Recycling Center, Dorman made many trips to the County Precinct Barns in Alvin for the dunes project that happened January 24. Dorman also gave his time for monthly aluminum can drives at Rustic Oaks Elementary, where PTA volunteers were in need of a trailer and truck. Dorman is on the KPB staff as a part-time Community Service Supervisor, working every Saturday from 8am to 1pm. Under his direction, the crews picked up last year 1,417 bags of trash, 1,386 bandit signs and 90 tires along the roadways of Pearland. He also volunteers his time at Christian Helping Hands making bread and food runs and recycling all their cardboard. Keep Pearland Beautiful appreciates all that Mr. Davidson does to help make Pearland the cleanest and most beautiful city in Texas; for all these reasons and many more KPB proudly presented the Stella Roberts Golden Pear Award to Dorman Davidson.

Weldon Flanakin Recycler of the Year
The Weldon Flanakin Recycler of the Year Award is named for a man who was an ardent recycler and is presented each year to someone who has promoted recycling in our community.

Ray and Irene have been Pearland residents for 38 years and married for 42 years. Ray is a retiree of Continental and Nabisco. Irene is now the Adult Reading Center’s Evening Manager.

Both Ray and Irene have recycled long before recycling was cool. Even their house was moved in from West University (by Cherry House moving). Ray has been called “Mr. Sanford” (as in Sanford and Sons) by his friends and his sons. Ray doesn’t mind at all.

At the Adult Reading Center, Irene can often be heard gently encouraging folks to “let’s just reuse every little thing until there’s no more use in it.” Her innovations include reusing, hard stock paper trimmings, as Instructor flash cards.

For the last few years Ray has volunteered the time and fuel to gather all the Reading Center recyclables and cart them to the Recycling Center.

Weekends find the Pompas working with their children or grandchildren creating any number of useable items from existing materials: grills welded from salvage steel, art lamps from discarded horse shoes, tomato planters from last Christmas’ popcorn cans, raised beds refreshed and reworked with existing landscape timbers.

Ray and Irene’s actions, diligence, and down-to-earth spirit were launched living on the farm with each set of grandparents. They are now seeing these same values sprout in both their children and grandchildren, marking at least 5 generations of stewardship for, as the Pompa’s say, “all that God has given us”. They are the daily influencers and role models for what each of us can do in action and spirit to Keep Pearland Beautiful. With pleasure KPB presented the Weldon Flanakin Recycler of the Year award to Ray and Irene Pompa.

Rookie of the Year
The next award winner is no “rookie” when it comes to volunteerism, but as a new member of Keep Pearland Beautiful’s board of directors, he IS one of the rookies among our volunteers. He has a passion for the environment that he recently acquired AND he was honest enough to tell us that he picked up his recycling bin AFTER becoming a member of the board! Since then he has taken on the job of chairing our Solid/Waste Recycling committee and has joined the Beautification committee. He has donated countless hours researching recycling projects such as a glass crusher and a fluorescent bulb crusher for the Stella Roberts Recycling Center. He has taken on-the-job training seriously by volunteering at the Recycling Center to get firsthand experience for how the Center works. His has been on hand to help for many of our events such as our Arbor Day tree give-away, Environmental Awareness Day, our Don’t Mess with Texas Trash Off and workdays at the Pearland Tree Farm, including weekly trips to water the containerized trees. In addition, Ed Miller serves on the Pearland Parks Board and is an active participant at the Knapp Senior Center. KPB presented with pleasure, the 2009 Rookie of the Year Award to Mr. Ed Miller.

Keep Pearland Beautiful is a 501( 3) nonprofit organization that has been in Pearland for 26 years. There are countless volunteers that give of their time and talents to help KPB achieve our vision of making Pearland the cleanest and most beautiful city in Texas. Please accept our thanks and appreciation; you are all winners in our book.

Comments may be sent to cowles@keeppearlandbeautiful.org or call our office at 281-652-1659.

Trees for Pearland Tree Guide

Now available in the Keep Pearland Beautiful office is the Trees for Pearland tree guide. The printing of this book was made possible in part by a generous grant from First Choice Power Fund, a division of PNM Resource Foundation. A special thanks to our professional Staff Forester I, Dallas Singleton, of the Texas Forest Service. With his input, Keep Pearland Beautiful is proud to offer the City of Pearland Tree Guide for all of our citizens to enjoy. Come by the offices of Keep Pearland Beautiful or check the information rack at City Hall to receive your copy of the tree guide.

Comments or questions may be sent to cowles@keeppearlandbeautiful.org or call the offices of Keep Pearland Beautiful at 281-652-1659.