We celebrated as DG Kurt honored two Nevada City Rotarians!
Chris Newsom — Fly Higher Award
We are recognizing Chris as the Fly Higher Rotarian because of her astute leadership in multiple areas of service with Nevada City Rotary. Most notably this year, after collecting almost 30,000 pounds of stretchable plastics, Chris found a sustainable solution that led to turning the program over to Stewardship Action Foundation (SAF) in September 2026.
Cathy Wilcox-Barnes — Quiet Rotarian Award
We are recognizing Cathy with the Quiet Rotarian Award because of the many ways Cathy serves our Club as Community Services and Club Services Chair both publicly and persistently behind the scenes. Cathy’s original vision for Pumpkins for Polio expanded through her collaboration with Nevada City and Chamber leadership. The fabulous success of this year’s second Pumpkins Palooza Family Celebration and Auction is in no small part due to her behind the scenes efforts managing pumpkins harvest at Bakbraken Acres and nurturing her relationships with local City businesses.
For more details about Chris and Cathy’s contributions —
Chris Newsom — Fly Higher Award
We are recognizing Chris as the Fly Higher Rotarian because of her astute leadership in multiple areas of service with Nevada City Rotary.
Chris is the Founding Chair of Nevada City Rotary Club’s Rotary Climate Action Team (RCAT) which when established several years ago was the first Environmental Committee in the District. Under Chris’s leadership the committee launched an area-wide stretchable plastics program engaging multiple local businesses to collect plastics that Club members collected and delivered to SafeMart for transport to Trex Company. The first phase project was intended to demonstrate the need and benefit of a stretchable plastics recycling program for the community in order to find a longer term sustainable solution. In the last 5 years, Nevada City Rotary has collected almost 30,000 lbs of stretchable plastics.
Through Chris’s due diligence, active community collaboration, and gentle tenacity, a viable more sustainable solution was found and the program was turned over to the Stewardship Action Foundation (SAF) in September 2026. SAF collects clean, clear or translucent, stretchable plastic film through community and business collection programs and partners with 1-800-GOT-JUNK to pick up and route the material to be reprocessed.
As an active member of the International Committee, Chris travels to Los Barriles each year as a visiting physician for the Health Screening Clinics the Club hosts with Los Barriles Rotary and the East Cape Health Clinic. Hundreds of children are screened for overall wellness including blood sugar, blood pressure, eye, and dental exams.
She is on the sewing team creating menstrual hygiene kits that she and others have delivered to young women served by Amigos de Guatemala. She has personally visited our Wendy our sponsored scholar along with a young child she personally sponsors.
Chris is also co-chair of the Club’s Program Committee. Chris joined Rotary / Nevada City Rotary in April 2016 and served as Co-President of the Club in 2022-2023.
Cathy Wilcox-Barnes — Quiet Rotarian Award
We are recognizing Cathy with the Quiet Rotarian Award because of the many ways Cathy serves our Club as Community Services and Club Services Chairs both publicly and persistently behind the scenes.
The Pumpkins Palooza fundraiser started in 2023 with Cathy’s idea to host a Pumpkins for Polio fundraiser. She partnered with Farmer John Drew at Bakbraken Acres to plan for planting and harvesting pumpkins that the club grew, were painted by local artists and club members, and then auctioned at a social event ahead of World Polio Day (October 24) to support Rotary’s End Polio Now campaign.
Last year, Cathy collaborated with the City of Nevada City, the Chamber and Nevada City Public Arts Commission to expand the fundraising effort to engage the City to launch our Pumpkins Palooza Family Celebration and Auction which would support both Polio Plus and Community Service projects This year the Club took the event to a whole new level including the Taste of the Town Restaurant Raffle exceeding our fundraising goals. 
Cathy Quiet you may ask? We know Cathy as a strong voice for Rotary - Nevada City Rotary, the District, and certainly her commitment to Ending Polio. While we applaud the gallant team effort that brought about the the overall success of this year’s Pumpkins Palooza, we want to acknowledge that a quieter Cathy was persistently working quietly behind the scenes in many ways very few in the Club even know about from recruiting businesses to display pumpkins, along with family and friends to paint, distribute and collect pumpkins, making her garage available, the uncountable trips to the farm with Tom and others, and many other tasks she handles without mentioning or any fanfare.
And she has travelled to Los Barriles annually since 2015 to help lead every quality of life and wellness project our Club has done over the years. She speaks with pride about recognizing community-wide wellness improvements in Los Barriles.