Meet the SAMMI Nominees for the Environment Category

The SAMMI Awards will be held on Friday and event organizers are inviting the community to attend the annual event to honor people who have contributed to life on the Sammamish Plateau.

To honor the nominees and give the public a brief introduction to them, Sammamish Patch will be running profiles and photos of each person until the event doors open.

The written introductions and photographs were supplied by the SAMMI Awards. Sammamish Patch and other sponsors have contributed to the annual event.

"The people we honor have made unselfish contributions to the quality of life in our city, and in doing so they inspire all of us (to) give back," SAMMI Awards Executive Director Cary Young wrote in a letter to the community.

"This type of award ceremony is truly unique to Sammamish, and reflects the values that make our city one of the best small cities in America."

The awards ceremony will be held at 7 pm at Eastridge Church at 24205 SE Issaquah-Fall City Rd. in Issaquah. The doors open at 5:30 pm. The event is open to the public. But organizers would appreciate a $5 per person donation.

On average, about 400 people attend the annual event.

Here are the nominees for the 2011 Environment category:

Elaine McEnery

• Growing up in Australia as an "outdoor" person she grew to adulthood and learned that everyone has a responsibility for environmental issues and the sense of urgency she feels. Being outdoors and caring for the environment is what grounds her and gives her a sense of soul. A visit to Bainbridge Island inspired her to undertake hundreds of hours of learning and teaching giving us the Sammamish habitat project which is her lasting legacy. In addition, her can-do attitude and sense of fun has resulted in trails such as those at Illahee.

Judy Petersen

• In her view the environment demands that we are good stewards and leave the planet at least as good as we found it. Judy implements ideas.  She leads by setting goals and tracking them step by step. She is a member of the Parks Commission, the Farmer’s Market steering committee and a driving force behind the sustainable Sammamish movement. She helps edit the Market publication. Passionate about our parks and trails Judy created Sammamish Walks by first walking then mapping the hundreds of miles of trails and posting it all to Sammamishwalks.org.