By Sue Moore
Ask a busy person to get something done and if it’s Kristina Powers Aubry, you can be sure it will get done. She just keeps giving of her time and tremendous talents to this community, said Laura Howard as she presented Aubry with the Vicksburg Rotary Club’s Mercer Munn award.
Aubry epitomizes the dedication of Mercer Munn when he was a Rotarian in Vicksburg, Howard said. The award recognizes a non-Rotarian each year who has made a major commitment to improving life in the area.
The award honors Aubry for her volunteer work with the Historical Society. She served for many years as president, vice-president and leader of the Historic Village Committee, which oversees the grounds and buildings in the Village.
Her major accomplishment, with the help of Margaret Kerchief and Karen Hammond, was to raise funds to complete the pavilion that has stood on the north side of the historic village site since 2013. The three women found clever ways to capture the heart and soul of this giving community by selling wooden pegs which would literally hold the structure together. They recorded the names of donors and gave each a document about their individual peg. What they didn’t tell the donor, after they carefully wrote a person’s name on the peg in indelible ink, was that it would disappear inside the logs that were being joined together for the framework.
These days, Aubry heads a plaque committee that has researched and placed bronze plaques at various historic buildings in and around Vicksburg. The newest one will go up in Oswalt Park to commemorate buildings that stood on that site from the 1890s until they were torn down in the 1970s.
Fundraising has been one of Aubry’s greatest contributions to Vicksburg. She agreed to co-chair with Ted Vliek the Vision Campaign in 2015-16 that raised the money to build the trailhead park and the Liberty Lane East. Before that, she was instrumental in raising funds to build the Village Garage on the grounds of the Historic Village.
She also helped to oversee the building, moving and restoration of the farmhouse, the barn, the township hall and the Strong School.
She has served on the South County Community Services (SCCS) board where she re-opened MOM’S Diner as a fundraiser during the Old Car Show. She helped to create the Dance Across the Decades that is the major fundraiser for SCCS.
For the last 20 years, she has served as an election official for Schoolcraft Township. When décor was needed for the walls of the township building, she found and reproduced many early photographs of community for display.
It isn’t all about money. She has been a part of the Rotary Club’s Showboat each year since her husband David became a member in 2009. That included a speaking part in the 2017 doctor’s skit, the first big speaking part for a woman in the show. Aubry calls herself a “proud Rotary partner.”