Oyster Bay Honors Lifetime Award Winner

This story was written by Oyster Bay-East Norwich Elementary PTA Co-President Ann Cutajar.

It is a tradition that at certain Board of Education meetings, the district administrators and BOE members recognize students, faculty, or administrators for their achievements during the school year. The BOE meeting on January 22, 2013 recognized students who participated in the All-County music program this year. (Congratulations to those students and their proud families.)

Also at this particular meeting, a surprise presentation was made on behalf of the Oyster Bay–East Norwich Elementary PTA. This year, the OBEN Elementary PTA decided to give out its first-ever Honorary Life Membership Award. The chosen recipient was well deserved in receiving this national award. And the award goes to – Mr. Tom Gould!

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Mr. Gould who is always busy taking notes or pictures, interviewing students and/or staff, publicizing our district (to name a few things) was the focus of recognition. Needless to say, he was surprised and graciously accepted the award to a standing ovation. Thank you for all that you do, Tom Gould. It was truly an honor for me to give this award to him on behalf of the students and members of our PTA. Here is an excerpt of what was said:

“On behalf of the Elementary PTA, we would like to give thanks tonight to someone other than the BOE who always goes the extra mile to help our school community. We felt that constant thank-you’s each year just weren’t enough. We feel that this person does so much for the PTA and what better way to show our appreciation then to give an award. So, this is the first time that the OBEN Elementary PTA is giving out an Honorary Life Membership Award. We are quite excited to give this award to our first-ever recipient – Mr. Tom Gould!

Mr. Gould, we are honored to give you this award because you have assisted the PTA in getting the word out about the wonderful things that we do for our students. You have supported us in getting the word out in our weekly OBserver and the local papers telling the community what the PTA does for our children. You are always there to take photos of our events. And I personally couldn’t have completed the yearbooks without your help with contributing photos so that the students could have memories to last a lifetime.

We do appreciate all that you do for the students and the PTA.”

Mr. Gould serves as the Nassau County Vice President of the Long Island School Public Relations Association. Recently, Mr. Gould produced a video highlighting the wonderful educational program in Oyster Bay – East Norwich. The video can be seen on the school website here. The soundtrack for the video was recorded by Oyster Bay students, staff and alumni. The soundtrack CD, “The Pearls of Oyster Bay” can be purchased in the Oyster Bay High School school store and from school organizations including the Friends of the Performing Arts Center (The PAC), the Booster Club and the PTA’s.

Mr. Gould was invited to speak about the making of this video and CD at the National School Public Relations Association annual conference in San Diego this summer.