ArtsNow Founding Board Member Honored with Chairman’s Award
Leianne Neff Miller, President & CEO of the Summit County Historical Society and founding board member of ArtsNow, remarks upon being awarded the Chairman’s Award by the Akron Summit Convention & Visitors Bureau.
I would like to thank the Academy! (ha ha)
But truly, thank you to Ren Camacho and the Akron-Summit CVB board of directors. I am humbled and honored to be recognized amongst my colleagues and peers for doing the work that I love. As a history nerd, it’s even more meaningful to receive this award during America250 as you can tell from my outfit. Thank you to my friend Todd Kleismit, executive director of America250-OH and Michael for driving up to support me today.
Gregg Mervis, I have gratitude beyond words for you. The way you uplift others makes our community proud.
God has blessed me in many ways. With my parents, Ken and Mary Lou, who taught me the values of family, community, hard work and honest ethics, but most importantly compassion and empathy for others.
With my siblings, Lindsay (who drove up from Zanesville to surprise me) and Mike, who like me, are out there helping other people and inventing what we don’t have if necessary to make things possible.
With my daughter Anastasia Marie who is a smarticle particle of whom I am proud of for her intelligence, humor, and most of all, her kindness to others. And my bonus daughters – Beth and Keren – Ana’s college roommates.
With my husband, Don, who allows me to be me – an eccentric, night owl who stays up too late (sometimes until he gets up in the morning for work and then I go to bed). Thank you.
It hasn’t been easy doing this nonprofit work, often times as a single mom with my closest relative over one hundred miles away, so the village stepped in – Alison and Phil First, Sandy Pecimon, the original SBC – Judy James, Mary Plazo and Bridget Ambrisco who also helped make up an important ladies group with Mary Pat Doorley, Karen Adinolfi, Jennie Vasarahelyi, Candy Bates and Janice Stahl. My work family is composed of outstanding individuals, and they are with me here today. As well as our board members, including our chair Chris Esker who besides his knowledgeable always rolls up his sleeves to pitch in.
I’ve had amazing mentors over my life from elementary school through college, and one of my first Akron mentors is here with me today, Sylvia Johnson. She is solid gold. And, I’ve been so fortunate to ease drop many years on Mr. Akron History himself, Dave Lieberth. I would not be the person I am at the Summit County Historical Society without him.
I want to thank so many community leaders like Suzie Graham Moore, Theresa Carter, Tracy Carter, Towanda Mullins, Greta Johnson, Marty Hauser, Colleen Kelly and Mark Greer, and more. But in the back of my head, I am imaging that Dave Lieberth is currently sarcastically thinking, “Leianne, there may be one more person in the far reaches of Summit County that you haven’t thanked yet.” He is right. I need to wrap this up.
Nice is underrated and misunderstood. Being nice is a choice and it’s one that I work on every day.
Remember, that even in our most dire circumstances, we have a choice. I lived two miles outside a town of less than 200 and the farm animals outnumbered residents. I grew up in a community that was 99.9% white. There were two black people in Noble County – Bobby Singer and his grandma.
When I went to college, I chose to be in the international dorm to meet people different than me. I knew that I was in the right place when my Turkish roommate Didem showed up and then she shared the matchbook cover of the place she stayed in Ohio on her drive to Missouri – the Shenandoah Inn – my uncle owned it. And when Hiroko from Japan shared that the woman who taught her English was named LeeAnn. Also, when God gave me Elena, my Russian roommate, who welcomed me to her home in Moscow. It’s not a coincidence that I have a daughter named Anastasia.We made a t-shirt for our dorm floor with Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s quote, “I am a part of all that I have met.”
I am grateful to have met you and to be a part of this community where our County Executive Shapiro is the first appointed and elected woman Executive in the state, and Mayor Malik is the youngest and first person of color to lead our city.
I choose to be happy here, and again, I am humbled to be recognized for my work in a county that helped mold John Brown into a mighty abolitionist, and to live in a sanctuary city filled with diverse individuals doing phenomenal things for the greater good of all humanity.