Former Fairfax Resident Is Franklin County Person Of The Year

The Sunday, January 27, 2008 Franklin County Edition of The Burlington Free Press carried a story on Sarah (Cook) Hurlbut, The Franklin County Person of the Year - Since the Burlington Free Press Website for Franklin County has not been updated since January 6, 2008, I don't expect this will be up there, so for those of you particularly outside the Franklin County Area, I have placed the article here:

2007 FRANKLIN COUNTY PERSON OF THE YEAR

Sara Hurlbut St. Albans grandmother shares blessings

By Helen J. Simon
Free Press Staff Writer

ST. ALBANS — Sarah Hurlbut says she's been very fortunate in her life. That's why she feels it's so important that she help others.

"It's a tough world," she said recently as she drove around St. Albans delivering hot lunches to elderly residents signed up for the Meals on Wheels program. "We can make it so much easier if we do give."
Meals on Wheels is only one of the programs with which she volunteers. She also works as a cashier in the gift shop at Northwestern Medical Center, coordinates lunches for Habitat for Humanity work crews, recites the rosary with residents of a nursing home and is active in her parish, Holy Angels Church on Lake Street.

In the past she has driven cancer patients to their chemotherapy appointments, done secretarial work for an AIDS advocacy group, helped in the kitchen at the Vermont Respite House, and even traveled to Brattleboro several times from Franklin County to take hot meals to a dying woman.

Hurlbut, 65, of Swanton, is modest about her volunteer work.

"It's just what I do," she said. "It's not a big deal."

Hurlbut was nominated by family members to be Franklin County's Person of the Year.

"Sarah exemplifies a very giving and compassionate spirit to her community and her family," said Tim and Sandy Bushey of Sheldon in their nomination letter. "She is a wife, mother, active grandmother, aunt, great-aunt and most importantly of all, a friend to all. We believe that she is deserving of this honor because she gives so much back to her community."

Sandy Bushey is Hurlbut's niece.

Others say Hurlbut is an energetic and caring person who is motivated to help by her religious beliefs.
Tom Brennan of Isle La Motte, who has known Hurlbut for about six years, recalled how she jumped right in when she decided to join a 2005 mission organized by the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph to deliver medical and school supplies to the Dominican Republic.

"She had so much enthusiasm," he said. "She just hopped on board."

In the Dominican Republic, she helped paint several rooms in a home for low-income elderly people, he said. More recently, she helped collect medical supplies and load them into a 40-foot shipping container the group sent to the Caribbean island last fall.

"She has an infectious personality," Brennan said. "She loves to laugh, she's always smiling, and she's always ready and interested to give of herself and her time."

David MacCallum of St. Albans, executive director of the Franklin-Grand Isle chapter of Habitat for Humanity, has known Hurlbut for about three decades. He said Hurlbut not only has cooked "more than her share" of meals for the Habitat workers, she's also bought them pizza out of her own pocket.

"She's a very outgoing, friendly, caring and dedicated individual," he said. "I could add a few more (adjectives) to that, too. I'm not making it up: she's an extremely nice person."

Hurlbut says her religious faith is a big inspiration.

"To serve — that's what I think we're called to do," she said. "To serve other people is serving Christ and I love that."

Hurlbut was born in St. Albans Bay, one of four daughters and a son to Cecil and Marjorie Cook, a farmer and a cook, respectively. She was raised in Fairfax and attended high school in St. Albans.
She met her husband, John "Jack" Hurlbut, at a dance her senior year in high school "and we've been together ever since," she said. The two have five children — Joseph, 49; Timothy, 45; Wendy, 43; Chad, 41; and John Jr., 37 — as well as 10 grandchildren.

After high school, Hurlbut went to work for New England Telephone and Telegraph in customer service, then transferred to AT&T in the Boston area in 1983. She returned to Vermont in 1993 and worked for Contact Communications in Burlington until her retirement in October.

Even while working, Hurlbut said she tried to do volunteer work. Now that she's retired she wants to make herself as useful as possible.

"I am so blessed that sometimes it's frightening," she said, adding that she wants to give back by trying to make the world a better place.

"I don't do much," she added. "I hope to do a lot more."