Person of the Year

Big enough for a generous shot of Aquavit

I’m going to take advantage of this space on the Internet to brag a little. The same week Time Magazine selected the president of Germany as their person of the year, the Norwegian American Chamber of Commerce chose the person they wanted to honor for 2015–my wife, Victoria.

We gathered last Friday at the Seattle Golf Club. It’s always amazingly beautiful and decorated so nicely for the holidays. When you walk in the door, you immediately feel like you could be arrested for trespassing. I’ve never been the ‘club’ type, but once each year, around 150 of the people I know from the Norwegian Community gather for a spirited kickoff to the holiday season.

And for the fourth year in a row, I had the privilege of emceeing the event.

What that did was give me a great excuse to get-together with the club’s president, Drew Gardner, to not only discuss what I was planning to do…but also, so that he could pick my brain about what he was going to say about Victoria when presenting the award.

Victoria, being on the board, was in on the discussions about who this year’s recipient would be. But the entire board was in on this surprise. They played along, trying not to give any looks that would be suspicious at their meetings and everything just fell into place.

I assisted Drew in crafting his announcement. You see, you want to make it sound like it could be the person she thought it would be, so we threw things that could have described most of the people in the room. Has been to Norway a lot, has relatives there, played the guitar, went to school in Norway…..and then, Drew said the word, “she.” In Victoria’s mind, it was supposed to be a “he.” Something was up. You can see the magic moment for yourself in this video.

If anyone would know how busy she is, it would be me. I see her come, I see her go. And while she does it out of passion and a sense of duty for her heritage, it’s nice to see her recognized by her peers.

Kudos, oh love of my life and congrats.

Tim Hunter

2 thoughts on “Person of the Year”

I, too, am very happy and proud to see the recognition Victoria recently received.
I met “Vicky” many, many years ago. Many years ago – during her “Northgate Years”. Although I only fell into the “acquaintance” category, I feel very lucky having had met her, as she has always been very kind, and I still think of her as a friend. It is impossible to explain how she has influenced my life, and for that I will always be grateful. I could go on and on talking about how she is, but then this would start sounding like a eulogy.
Award or no award, recognition or no recognition – she is a very humble person, and deserves all the happiness possible. She has always had, and always will have my utmost respect.

Din venn / bekjent alltid, kjærlighet,
E

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