Sequim Gazette staff
The Master Gardener Foundation of Clallam County has awarded four of its members the Golden Trowel award for years of outstanding service to their communities and the Master Gardener organization.
Recipients for 2013 are Dave Dau, Rita Dinger, Lori Kennedy and Janice Noonan. Each recipient has over 1,000 volunteer hours in education, in the Woodcock Demonstration Garden and on the foundation board.
• Dau became a Master Gardener in 2010. He was born in Idaho and grew up in Idaho and Washington. He spent some time in the Navy on a destroyer based out of San Diego, Calif., and was deployed to the South Pacific. Dau has a master’s degree in psychology and taught at Anchorage Community College and the University of Alaska. Upon retiring, he moved to Seattle to be closer to family, ultimately settling in Port Angeles in 2008.
• Dinger has been a Master Gardener since 2004. She is a retired CPA and has worked for the largest public accounting firm in the world that audited very large corporations and foundations. She also was the chief financial officer of a large mortgage company. There are more than 25 cultivars of Siberian iris in her personal garden.
• Kennedy, classes of 1998 and 2011, is the only recipient to take the Master Gardener training twice. She was born in Bellingham and grew up in the Sequim/Port Angeles area. Kennedy graduated from Eastern Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in international affairs, with minors in economics and Spanish. It was not until her children were toddlers and wanted to play outside that she developed a keen interest in gardening. After working at Rayonier Mill, Kennedy was hired as the administrative assistant with WSU Extension.
• Noonan became a master gardener in 2004. She was born and raised in Aberdeen, attending Grays Harbor College and the University of Seattle. Her career jobs include one at a small law firm in Seattle, a judge with the Washington State Court of Appeals and with an entertainment law firm in Beverly Hills, Calif.
