I just got back from a luncheon that honored two public servants for their work on behalf of the Valley. Margaret Foley, a longtime member of the board of directors at Kaweah Delta Hospital, received the ninth annual Rose Ann Vuich Ethical Leadership Award and Sunne Wright McPeak, state secretary of business, transportation and housing, received the Excellence in Public Service Award presented by the Fresno Business Council.
The Vuich award came about after a column I wrote in 1997 suggested that the former state senator should be honored for her example of ethical leadership.
I wrote this about Vuich in a 2001 column: "Vuich. . . was California's first woman state senator, and her reputation was sterling, even after 16 years of serving in a chamber that was often corrupted by special interests. Vuich, who retired in 1992, chaired the Senate's Banking and Commerce Committee, and the corrupters would have loved to get their hooks into her. It never happened."
Today's event was an opportunity to celebrate the good things about public service, especially at a time when we are hearing a lot of bad things about people representing us. Margaret Foley and Sunne Wright McPeak represent the best in public officials.
Here's a side note: Margaret Foley's husband, the late Jim Foley, was The Bee's Tulare County reporter for many years. When I was a young reporter, I served a couple of summers subbing for Jim Foley when he was on vacation. He had the Tulare County courthouse wired and almost daily some public employee would walk into the press room and hand me the big story of the day. It would steam the reporters for the Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare Advance-Register, who shared the courthouse press room. Why was this young kid getting the best stories? Simple. Jim Foley had developed relationships of integrity and trust with courthouse workers, and they were more than happy to help The Bee out because of it.
We have to give a note of thanks to Jim Boren for starting this tradition. It's especially nice, in these times of negative campaigning, to hear of those among us who perform such exceptional public service. And, even better this year, is the fact that both honorees were women!