Recycle Hi-Line honors 4 as environmental heroes

For years, Candi Zion handed out the annual Environmental Heroes Awards at the Havre City Council meeting before Earth Day.

This year, she was on the other end of the award-giving.

Zion was one of the recipients of the heroes award at Monday night’s council meeting.

Zion was a founding member of Recycle Hi-Line, the group that that educates the public on environmental topics, sponsors the monthly recycle drives at Pacific Steel & Recycling and hands out the heroes awards. She and Terry Turner founded the group in May 2008.

Zion resigned when she moved to Winifred, but she remains president of Recycle Montana.

While she was in Havre, Zion was also co-chair of the Havre/Hill County Preservation Commission.

She was praised at Monday night’s City Council meeting for her work on the environment.

In 2008, “Recycle Hi-Line was born and the rest is history,” said Sue Swan, longtime Recycle Hi-Line volunteer at the council meeting.

“In eight short years, she was able to bring the group to non-profit status, create partnerships with community (and beyond) stakeholders, educate citizens about the importance of avoiding landfill misuse and start the popular recycle drives,” Swan said.

A crowd of Recycle Hi-Line members, clad in the group’s green T-shrts, cheered as Sawn presented the award.

Other Environmental Hero Awards were presented to:

Paula Reynolds

Reynolds worked in the advertising departments at the Havre Daily News and later at the Blaine County Journal.

“Her creativity was evident in her home decorating and her kitchen,” Swan said. “She was always ‘upcycling’ and never let anything go to waste,” Swan said.

Reynolds died unexpectedly on Feb. 24, leaving behind a legacy that lives on, she said.

“A room in her basement became devoted to storing and sorting the items until the monthly recycling day,” Swan said.

Her family still recycles at the monthly recycling events, Sawn said.

Family members accepted the award on her behalf.

Gwen Goar

Goar, the director of the North Central Senior Center, brings recyclables to the monthly drives in a truck and sometimes she has to make two trips.

If seniors can’t drive to the monthly recycling efforts, she will see to it that their recyclables get there.

Paper and Styrofoam products are used sparingly at the senior center, “further decreasing the carbon footprint,” Swan said.

Joe Vernon

Joe Vernon will graduate from Montana State University-Northern next month, although Swan said jokingly that Recycle Hi-Line members might ask one of his professors if they can arrange it so he doesn’t graduate.

“He researched the recycling of No. 5 plastics which were were not accepting because of lack of vendors,” Swan said. “He coordinated campus efforts to package and ship these plastics.”