Minster honors Linda Kitzmiller

MINSTER - The Minster Civic Association on Saturday night named longtime resident Linda Kitzmiller as 2017 Citizen of the Year for her commitment and service to the village.

Association president Kurt Baumer said Kitzmiller has "gone above and beyond to serve the community behind closed doors."

Kitzmiller used her background as a nurse to conduct the feasibility study for a nursing program at Edison State Community College. Her study was approved and the college's nursing program has maintained full accreditation and approval throughout its history.

She has spent more than 26 years as the Minster representative to the Auglaize County Board of Health and now serves as board president. She also has more than 24 years of service as the Minster representative to the Auglaize County Educational Service Center and more than 12 years as the village representative on the Joint Township District Memorial Hospital Foundation Board.

In that time, she personally sponsored the new beauty shop during the hospital's most recent remodeling project.

Within the Minster community, she has more than 18 years of service on the zoning board and planning commission and also has served on the Minster Area Life Squad Advisory Board.

She has served for the past 40 years on the parish council, the education commission, the welcoming committee and Change for Change at St. Augustine Catholic Church. She also has served as Eucharistic minister.

Kitzmiller has continuously served as a catechist at the church for the past 30 years, providing religious education to children enrolled in the church's religious education program. Each year, she works to receive her advanced certification, which is the highest continuing education accreditation for religious education teachers. She teaches second-generation children, having taught their parents as well.

She also has been responsible for the St. Augustine/St. Joseph Parish Pictorial Directory.

"Working on the pictorial directory is like having a baby - it takes about nine months and after two to three years, you forget the pain and aggravation," she said.

Kitzmiller arrived in Minster 40 years ago and was embraced by the community. She said it has "been a blessing to live in the village and call it home."

Prior to moving to Minster, Kitzmiller said she had been a military child and had lived all around the world, attending six different schools. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree in 1970 and a Master of Nursing in 1974. She was an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi, where she taught nursing and participated in the births of more than 1,000 babies.

Kitzmiller joins 48 others who have received this recognition.

"I am very gracious and extremely surprised," she said about receiving the award. "I am truly blessed to be married to wonderful man, to have two wonderful children and to have time to volunteer my services to the county and village."