After an unconventional 2020, the Tellico Village HomeOwners Association returned in force last week to hold a more formalized 2021 Volunteer Service Award ceremony as a simple way to thank people for their contributions.

Nine people were chosen during the Dec. 14 ceremony at the Yacht Club to highlight special achievements within the HOA.

Due to COVID-19 precautions in 2020, only the eight selected and some board members were present for the meeting. But this time the ceremony was implemented as part of the HOA’s final in-person social of the year.


Ken Litke, HOA president, said doing so “just seem to work.”

“It’s at the end of the year, it’s our last social,” Litke said. “We’re just going to have some music, give away some gifts and then enjoy recognizing the volunteers. It’s kind of a fun meeting at the end of the year, like putting this year to bed, so to speak. It kind of fits in with that theme to end the year.”

The ceremony began at 5 p.m., with the social 30 minutes prior. Attendees sat at tables while each volunteer was called to the front to receive an inscribed HOA paperweight.

“The whole Village is run on volunteers,” Mark Pantley, incoming HOA president, said.

“I mean that to me is one of the keys to making Tellico Village what it is, and that’s actually one of the reasons we moved here is that volunteer approach and volunteer spirit, it’s not just all hired help. So HOA is a piece of that.

“I mean, there’s other groups like New Villagers and lots and lots of clubs, but the HOA is a big piece of this,” he added. “We put a lot of time thinking about how to improve the social fabric, I guess is one way to think about it, and that’s important to us. We think about what kind of information that Villagers may need to know, things like the elections or some issue that might be going on.”

Dennis Dougherty, who for the past two years served as HOA vice president of programs, successfully found ways to deliver content during the pandemic through special Voice of the Village emails and online streaming. When conditions improved, he ran live Open Village meetings with streaming for a successful Tellico Village Property Owners Association Board of Directors candidate forum.

Dougherty found recognition from his peers “absolutely special.”

“This is a volunteer community and one of the things that my wife and I wanted to do when we moved down here was to get involved,” he said. “It’s been a phenomenal group of people to work with, I mean it really has, and I believe that in a small way that on my watch we made some changes that I think are for the betterment of the Village. There’s nothing better than being recognized by your peers. ... We usually don’t have a shortage of volunteers, which is fantastic.”

Jackie Starnes has been with the HOA for four years and has served as promotions chairwoman.

“It’s always nice to be recognized, but I know and believe in the organization. Besides that, I go out and I get to see all the new businesses all the time,” Starnes said. “... This is a great group, it’s so much fun. I used to say that it was J-O-B, but it’s really not. This is a fun thing to do. We’re done, we’re retired with all that other stuff. This is one that I don’t mind doing.”

Others recognized were HOA Event Coordinators Lisa St. Pierre, Evie Jones and Jerry Brown, HOA golf representative Bob Flaig, TellicoLife Business Manager and HOA Vice President of Technology KC Babb, HOA Vice President of Social Planning Sheryl Warmbold and Tellico Village Network Station Manager Kevin Kritch.

The HOA also noted departing board members Dougherty, Warmbold, Vice President of Communications George Curran, Welcome Orientation representative Christie Bruns and Past President Ellen Fox.

“Every single person counts, that’s the big part of it,” Pantley said.