Don Marshall, Outgoing Citizen of the Year, Reflects

By Dinah B. MacPhail

Bedford’s 2011 Citizen of the Year, Don Marshall, enjoys Bedford Day with his wife Barbara

It’s early on a Wednesday morning, and on his shady back porch, Don Marshall is telling a story. “They came around with this nice little blue Volkswagen convertible, and it was all I could do to get in the car. It had only one door, and there was a banner across it…once I was in it, I was in it.” Smiling fondly, he trails off, seeming both gratified and a little embarrassed by all the attention he was paid after being named Bedford’s Citizen of the Year late last year.

The honorary title has been awarded yearly to an upstanding citizen since 1979. Marshall, who has lived on the same acreage since he and his wife Barbara moved to Bedford in 1966, can name many of them off the top of his head (“but not in order,” he jokes). The selection is made from nominations by fellow residents, though Marshall himself seems disinterested in the process, which he calls a “great mystery.” For him, this mystery heightens the pleasure of being honored in the first place.

The Citizen of the Year must be a Bedford resident and must have spent time and effort improving town life. After submissions are gathered, a committee reviews them and a selection is made in a process Marshall calls “one of the best-kept secrets in Bedford.” He himself only discovered that he had been selected when an acquaintance dropped by the house to give him an anonymous envelope, congratulatory note inside. He admits to being “embarrassed” to have been chosen over others, but smiles when he speaks of the award. As much as he would downplay the nomination’s importance in his daily life, it has clearly made him happy.

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At the back of the house Marshall shares with Barbara and an ever-varying number of dogs, we may as well be separated from the rest of the populated world. Seated casually on a wicker chair on the porch set on the other side of the house from North Road, and sporting a T-shirt emblazoned with the logo of the Global Warming Action Coalition, Marshall looks off into the very trees for which he has long been an advocate. His is a familiar face around town, at town meetings and farmers markets, but while his passion for Bedford is clear, his easy-going attitude could make his service to the town easy to overlook if one is not paying attention.

Despite his modesty, Marshall’s contributions to the town go back to the late 1960’s, when he first became involved with promoting awareness of environmental concerns through the Water Study Committee. Indeed, his commitment to the environment came long before awareness of environmental issues had become mainstream. Over the years, Don has been instrumental in several environment-focused committees, dealing with water and recycling, plants and trees, and culminating inthe creation of Bedford Arbor Resources Committee (BARC) in 1999.

Marshall’s love of Bedford is holistic; he cares for the people and the land they live on. His passion for nature is as clear when he talks about his political activism as it is when he shows you his garden, offering fresh basil to smell or giving impromptu lessons on native trees. The history of his work for the town is filled not just with committee titles, but also with the names and stories of the people he worked with. When he gives up the title of Citizen of Year, he will go on doing what he has always done, working quietly and diligently for the town he loves.

Marshall seems largely unconcerned about the end of his reign as Citizen of the Year, since the award will be going to someone who deserves it. As Marshall says, “Bedford is full of well-qualified people.”

For more information on the Citizen of the Year, please visit www.bedfordma.gov.

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