Jan Taddeo and Rhett Baird
The 2014 UURMaPA Unsung Hero Award was given to the Rev. Rhett Baird of Snellville, GA. Rhett Baird has been an outstanding Area Coordinator for UURMaPA. Our Caring Coordinator, Margi Nasmann, first got him to agree to serve, asking Rhett to contact retired colleagues in Georgia — to keep in touch. Rhett does just that — in spades! He calls, he writes, he urges his retired UU colleagues to contact him — with an urgency that invites response! Rhett also alerts other retired colleagues to call someone if he feels they can be useful.
With the invaluable help of the Rev. Jan Taddeo, minister of the UU congregation of Gwinnette in Lawrenceville, GA, the award was presented on December 10 at the Atlanta area UU ministers cluster meeting. Jan first called Rhett with an invitation to come to the meeting. She told him she needed him, and she couldn’t tell him why! One of the reasons Rhett is this year’s recipient of the Unsung Hero Award is that he knew, because Jan was his colleague, regardless of the mystery surrounding her request, he needed to do what she’d asked him to do. With trepidation as to what he was being asked to do, Rhett showed up at the cluster meeting.
They seated him at the head of the table—he couldn’t figure out why—and then they presented him with the letter from the Rev. Richard Gilbert, President of UURMaPA, and a check that goes with the award. Rhett was so surprised — he said he cried through the entire presentation.
The letter accompanying the award reads, in part, “As the Georgia Area Coordinator for UURMaPA’s Caring Network, you have gone above and beyond the call of duty to serve your retired colleagues. You call. You write. You keep in touch. You care.” Quoting Kenneth Patton, Rev. Gilbert continued, “He sought not the honor of the high seat, but the place where the needed tasks were to be done; he was a willing servant, knowing the honor and the reward in being used.”
In his letter thanking the UURMaPA Board for this honor, Rhett wrote, “I have no words to adequately express my deep appreciation to you for recently being presented the designation of 2014 Unsung Hero and its accompanying $500… Rhonda, my wife of almost fifty four years, and I are both most grateful and appreciative of this honor and recognition. I will try to continue to live up to your expectations. We are both glad that UURMaPA exists, and we know that its various activities touch the lives of our colleagues and partners in many and diverse and important affirming ways that are, indeed, blessings, every one of them. Every act of care and concern is surely a blessing upon both the giver and the receiver. And, thus, ministry continues to flourish among us and to that I can only say Amen.”