To the American Legion Riders of Post 123. This group, which has only existed for two years, finished off 2009 by donating more than $1,500 to three area organizations, as well as teaming with Food Lion to send food to U.S. troops serving overseas and helped a family with a child needing major surgery.

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To Mount Airy Commissioner Jon Cawley for raising the call for city officials to more aggressively attack the issue of a city-wide recycling program.

As Cawley pointed out, such a program might prove to be too costly, but he is pushing his colleagues on the board to have the city at least do the math on such a program to find out if the benefits match or exceed the cost of such an idea.

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To the members of the Surry County Board of Education who took a good portion of Monday’s meeting to pay tribute to the late Jeff Hall, who served on the board until his death in December.

Hall was a dedicated public servant who worked on the board because he cared about the welfare of Surry County youth. That his colleagues on the board would publicly honor him at one of those meetings was a fitting tribute to Hall.