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Nose for News by Sarah Stultz

We’re in the middle of preparing our annual Progress edition, which is our largest newspaper of the year.

For those who aren’t familiar with it, it’s a time when we highlight people, businesses and organizations making positive strides in the community under a different theme each year.

This year’s theme is “Together Toward Tomorrow.”

As part of our annual Progress section, each year we look to highlight a Citizen of the Year — someone we think has helped propel the community forward more than any other that year and who deserves a little extra recognition.

We ask for recommendations from you, our readers, about who you have seen in the community doing good things during the last year and ask that you let us know who you would nominate.

Nominations can be sent to sarah.stultz@albertleatribune.com. Please include not only the name of the person you recommend but also some of the rationale of why you think the person is deserving of the recognition.

Once the nomination period closes, we have a special Citizen of the Year committee that meets in January to review the nominations and select a winner.

The people recognized since the creation of this award have varied in factors like age, livelihood and backgrounds, but they all have had one thing in common — they went over and above the average person in their efforts to better the community.

Named as Citizen of the Year since we started are the following:

• 2018: Holly Karsjens
• 2019: Norm Fredin
• 2020: Brad Arends
• 2021: Johanna Thomas and Eileen Woyen
• 2022: Cindy Gandrud
• 2023: Darryl Meyer
• 2024: Century Partners

We have also recognized a Junior Citizen of the Year two years. In 2020, we recognized Aaron Farris, and in 2024, we recognized Jordan Habana. We are always particularly in need of more recommendations in this category.

We know there are many people who work every day to make Albert Lea a better place to live, work and enjoy.

Some work out in the open, while others work more behind the scenes. We’d love to hear about them all.

And while there are surely people who have done great things over the course of their lives, we’re particularly interested in people who have made an impact during the last year, and if possible, over a large part of the community.

We encourage you to take a few minutes out of your day and send us your nominations by Jan. 20.

Email them or drop them off in-person at 808 W. Front St.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Wednesday.