Henry G Fix Unit #23 of Garretson, SD is pleased to announce DaNann Williamson Tirrel as our Unit Member of the Year for 2021-2022. DaNann joined our auxiliary in 2018. Her membership is due to the service of her father, Dean, a VietNam Era veteran.
While DaNann is a relatively new member, this hasn’t stopped her from becoming involved in the many activities of our Unit. She is currently our Vice President and has stepped up when necessary in our President’s absence. At one of the meetings she presided over, she took it upon herself to wrap Hershey candy bars with thank you notes and hand out to the Legion members in attendance.
On Veterans Day, our unit served meals to the veterans and their spouses at our local nursing home. DaNann volunteered to help deliver the meals and visit with the residents. Later that evening, DaNann along with another member, presented excerpts of our unit history as we celebrate our 100 years of service to this community.
No matter what the project, DaNann is ready to volunteer her time, money or goodies. Some of the projects she was involved in was donating, packaging, and delivering goodies to our older Legion and Auxiliary members, preparing food for an Honor Flight fundraiser, or being a presenter at our Memorial Day ceremony. As DaNann is a teacher as well as a librarian, she has been very helpful in judging our Poems and Essays entries.
While DaNann is very busy with her normal schedule at school, she takes time to promote veteran recognition with various activities for her students. She also been asked to mentor new teachers on the state level. DaNann has honored veterans in her library when students stopped in and provided thank you notes for them to sign to honor their veterans which she hung in her library. She has also involved her students in working for the community and also assisting our unit in gathering items to send to our deployed serviceman. Her students are currently making Valentines for our unit which will be included in our care packages sent to our local soldiers who are in the service state side and overseas.
She engaged her students when they worked with a local business to create cards for the troops. She also asked the teachers and staff to become involved. On 9/11, her students had a 9/11 Remembrance Day in the library at school, they created patriotic centerpieces for all of the tables, had a book display with patriotic books.
She is very good about putting stories on Facebook to promote our Auxiliary as well as the Legion. DaNann has said “I have learned more from the Veterans and Auxiliary members I’ve had the privilege of meeting with each month than I would ever imagined.”
With DaNann’s many accomplishments and her desire to teach children about patriotism and respect and honor for our veterans, you can see why she would be selected as Teacher of Year by our legion as well as her school. It is with great pride that we nominate DaNann Williamson Tirrel for the Unit Member of the Year 2021-2022.
