Guilford County Commissioners were all extremely proud of one of their own at the board’s Thursday, Sept. 5 meeting.
Commissioner Kay Cashion had just won the 2019 Commissioner of the Year Award for the state of North Carolina due to her service at the local, state and national level.
The award goes each year to the county commissioner whose peers determine that he or she has gone above and beyond the job of commissioner and exemplifies, at the highest level, the service and attributes that a commissioner should display.
The award is presented each year to a North Carolina county commissioner who has demonstrated “special achievements and efforts, primarily during the past 12 months, on behalf of government throughout the state and nation, not just within his or her county.”
In the award’s 56-year history, only three prior Guilford County commissioners have received the honor before Cashion pulled it in this year.
Cashion serves on the board of directors for both the state and national associations of county commissioners and she also received a recent award for her work promoting the arts. Cashion was also a driving force behind the establishment of the Guilford County Family Justice Center in Greensboro as well as the opening of a second center in High Point. Those centers help abused spouses, rape victims and others who have experienced similar traumatic events and often have nowhere else to turn.
She frequently represents Guilford County at state and national events – and she’s also the commissioner who leads the Guilford County Citizen’s Academy.
Cashion was honored with the state association award due also to her “Life-long dedication to criminal and social justice issues,” as well as her “contribution to the arts and education in the county and the state.”
Cashion was handed the award at the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Sept. 5 meeting, but she had won the award at the state conference at Grandover Resort a week earlier.
At that event, Cashion was honored by statewide colleagues, and awarded what’s officially titled the “M.H. ‘Jack’ Brock Outstanding County Commissioner Award from the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners (NCACC)”
The award is determined through votes from NCACC members, and the NCACC board makes the final decision.
At the Sept. 5 Guilford County commissioners meeting, Commissioner Skip Alston said he had no doubt that one day Cashion would get handed the National Commissioner of the Year Award, and many other county commissioners praised Cashion’s work and her tireless energy in pursuing admirable goals all around the country.
“This was a tremendous surprise for me,” she said at the Sept. 5 meeting.
Cashion said she had seen the video of herself when the award was first announced at the conference last week.
“My immediate reaction was that, if I had known, I would have gotten my hair done and bought a new dress,” she joked.
“It was very nice to be recognized by my peers,” she said, adding that there are very many deserving county officials across the state and she said that they all deserved to be recognized.
