Roberta Ennis, Bedford’s 2012 Citizen of the Year

By Julie McCay Turner

Bedford may never have experienced a volunteer more ardent or committed than this year’s Citizen of the Year, Roberta Ennis.

Although she was “shocked” to learn that she had been chosen, Ennis said, “being named Citizen of the Year really makes you feel part of Bedford.” But from the time she moved to Bedford with her young family in 1961, intending to stay for just a short time, she has been just that, touching countless lives through her service to Bedford and its organizations.

Ennis’s volunteer involvement began during her 20-year career at Mitre Corporation. When asked how she managed to run for School Committee, work and raise a family, she said “I thought I had some free time, and if you want something bad enough, you go for it.”

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Ennis was elected to the Bedford School Committee for two terms, campaigning on the premise that the schools should, first and foremost, serve the children. “It’s about Bedford’s kids,” she says, “I wanted to make sure they all got a good education.”

Even before she ran for the School Committee, Ennis was involved in the schools through her own children’s activities, working with various parent groups and with former Bedford High School principal Tom Duggan to institute Soundings, the Bedford High School parent newsletter.

During her terms on the School Committee, declining enrollments prompted the closing of the Center School (now Bedford’s Town Hall and Town Center) and the Page School (now Page Place condominiums). Those were difficult decisions;  as Ennis pointed out in a recent interview, “Enrollment goes up and down. Now we need more space!”

A continued involvement with Bedford schools is evident through Ennis’s work on the School and Municipal Space Needs committee, the High School’s building committee, and the planning committee for the Fallen Veterans Memorial. Dollars for Scholars, now the Citizens Scholarship Foundation (CSF), is another of Ennis’s beloved programs. Students and families attending the annual scholarship ceremony have Ennis to thank for negotiating the change in venue to the then Stouffer’s Bedford Glen hotel (now the Doubletree Hilton), and where the ceremony and reception have remained to this day. And after a hiatus of several years, she’s involved again as co-chairman of CSF’s Permanent Fund.

Community celebrations are another part of Ennis’s volunteer history in Bedford. A gregarious, outgoing woman, as a member of the Public Ceremonies Committee she was involved in the early celebrations of Bedford Day in the 1960’s; the town’s Bicentennial celebrations in 1776; Bedford’s observance of the turn of the millennium, B2K, in 2000; and currently serves on the town’s Patriotic Ceremonies Committee.

Every year on the Friday after Thanksgiving, Ennis rounds up her team of volunteers to help with gift-drop day for Bedford Santa. “Bedford is the only town, I want to say in the country, that makes sure that every child gets a gift from Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. It’s a big, big deal,” she says.

Bedford Santa is one of Bedford’s longest-running and most popular volunteer programs. Each year scores of returning volunteers and newcomers  come together to create more than a touch of magic on Christmas Eve in Bedford, a program so popular that even after one former resident Judge moved to a neighboring town, he returned to take part in the program each year until shortly before his death).

And then there’s Ennis’s connection to Town Center and its Senior Center, the Council on Aging (COA) and the Friends of the COA. She has been deeply involved with the renovation of Town Center since 1985, when she was named to the Designer Selection Committee. Now as chairperson of the COA and president of the Friends of the COA, Ennis is delighted with the facility and its programs.

“We needed more room [when the Senior Center was voted down the first time it came before Annual Town Meeting]”, she said, “but I couldn’t accept that.” Ennis and then-Senior Center Director Carolyn Bottum met with the architect during the summer and helped to negotiate a plan that brought the competing new DPW building to Town Meeting one year and Town Center the next so that both would be approved by Bedford voters.

In its quarters in Town Center, Bedford’s Senior Center is a hub of activity, with daily programs, weekly lunches, monthly visits by health care professionals and plenty of social time for both men and women. There’s a Fix-it workshop where you can bring small appliances for repair or watches for new batteries; a thriving computer center where seniors can use up-to-date computers or receive one-on-one training and support; there’s usually a card game or two and a hot game of pool in progress—and there’s always fresh coffee and donated goodies to enjoy while chatting with friends who drop in.

The Senior Center, open Monday through Friday, is also open on Saturday afternoon, funded by town monies plus grants, and the Center boasts more than 170 volunteers. “The value of our volunteer help exceeds the amount of funding we get from the town each year,” Ennis said with pride.The Friends of Bedford’s Council on Aging  meets monthly to plan trips and activities that help to raise funds in support of the Senior Center.

And the list of Ennis’ civic activities goes on: the American Legion Auxiliary, which Ennis has been a member of for 30+ years, helping to raise funds and serve the annual Thanksgiving dinner for Bedford’s senior citizens; her stint as the President of the Bedford Woman’s Community Club, and their collaboration with Bedford’s Frank W. Thompson Masonic Lodge and the CHIPS child identification program; the Emerson Auxiliary, for which she would load all of her children in the back of the family’s station wagon, drive around town to collect goodies from willing bakers and deliver them to Concord to be sold during the hospital’s weekly bake sale fundraisers; and, just for fun, she helped to found Bedford’s Red Hat Society.

Amazing? Not for Bobbie Ennis, Bedford’s 2012 Citizen of the Year!