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Ken Eitel named 2018 Citizen of the Year
A man who has given more to his community in retirement than most people ever do in a lifetime has been named the 2018 Citizen of the Year by the Greater Greencastle Chamber of Commerce.
Firmly entrenched in Act II of his career after a successful run as a merchant and entrepreneur at Horace Link Furniture and as fourth-generation owner of his family business, Eitel’s Flowers, Ken Eitel was honored Saturday night during the Chamber’s Annual Meeting at the Community Building on the Putnam County Fairgrounds.
One of several nomination letters for Eitel noted how people often give time, money or support to their community in an effort to make it a better place to live. But most of those folks generally do that until their retirement “and spend the rest of their life on a beach or on the golf course.”
However, Eitel saw retirement as an opportunity and realized he was “just getting started,” the nomination noted, “choosing to take new-found time and invest in people and take his life experiences as an entrepreneur, father and community leader and mentor the next generation to make sure this life of servant leadership is passed down to the next generation.”
Eitel has recently served on the Putnam County Community Foundation Board as chairman of several committees and then as vice president and president, 2017-18.
He also has helped start and grow the Putnam County 100-Plus Men Who Care group, was a key figure in helping bring an Ivy Tech campus to Greencastle and has been director of the Ivy Tech Business and Entrepreneurial Center as well.
Past service has included work with Main Street Greencastle, particularly when the organization was beginning in 1984 and undertaking a downtown revitalization project.
He also has served on the Greencastle Citizens Advisory Council for Industrial Development and was a member of the committee that helped earn the All-America City designation for Greencastle in 1991, along with helping to revitalize the Historic Preservation Society of Putnam County, which he has also served as president in the recent past.
The Citizen of the Year even served as Chamber of Commerce president in 1976, the year current Chamber Executive Director Brian Cox noted he was born.
Eitel and wife Jackie have also set up endowments at the Putnam County Foundation -- a scholarship endowment for Ivy Tech, a Community Visions donor-advised fund and the Eitel Community Endowment.
“Ken has a quiet personality and hasn’t done any of these things for his personal benefit,” another nomination noted. “He has done them because he loves Greencastle and Putnam County and feels compelled to give what he can back to the community that has given him so much.”
Eitel, who was to have flown to Tucson for a vacation on Saturday morning, but postponed the trip after wife Jackie told him Mary Anne Birt was going to be named Citizen of the Year and that they had to be at the Chamber dinner for that on Saturday night.
“I knew she (Jackie) wasn’t going to miss doing that,” Eitel said.
“I lied and lied and lied and lied some more,” Jackie Eitel said, noting that their son Jacob and his wife Ashley were also at the Chamber event, telling her husband they were there representing Hendricks Radiology and Putnam County Hospital.
“This is such a surprise, such an honor to be here and receive this award,” Eitel said from the podium, calling his wife and others “devious” in conspiring to get him to the dinner meeting after rearranging their Arizona plans.
“Jackie figured out a way for me to change those tickets,” Eitel said, adding that she was adamant about it.
“I’ll even pay for it,” she told him, “don’t worry about it.”
There were seven nominees this year for Citizen of the Year, Cox said
Cox also addressed the annual meeting, saying he wants the Chamber to focus on education this year as the next generation of business leaders is emerging “and we need to find ways to help them succeed in business and our community.”
The audience also heard from incoming president Beau Battin of Scorpion Protective Coatings, who will be doing his second stint in that office for the Chamber, having served as the 2012 president. He succeeds Susan Lorimer of Big Bounce Fun House in that role.
“I believe in our mission. I believe in our purpose,” Battin said of the Chamber, adding that progress in Greencastle since his first term “has been amazing.”
While a lot of the credit to the revival downtown must go to the Stellar Community Grant, Battin said, equally important have been “people who wanted to make a difference.”