By Jeff Kenney Editor
CULVER—Culver’s Lions Club honored two local citizens last Wednesday with a dinner and ceremony, an annual event for the group in past decades. At the Jan. 23 event, Lions president Mike Overmyer introduced the winner of the Community Service Award, Original Rootbeer Stand owner Mark Damore, by describing Damore’s Chicago roots as the “son of a man who worked without regard for exhaustion.”

Damore, said Overmyer, attended Northern Illinois University on a full scholarship for his gymnastics excellence before focusing his talents on Original Chicago Produce Inc., a company he still runs over 30 years later.
Damore wed his wife Becky in 1978 and the couple had one son, named after his father. Eventually the couple bought a house on the west shore of Lake Maxinkuckee (in 1998) and finally moved here permanently in 2002, said Overmyer. “From day one it was a safe bet that if you needed a donation of any kind, Mark Damore would be there to help,” Overmyer added.
Damore purchased Eby’s drive in in Culver, changed the name to the Original Root Beer stand, and enhanced the business with a physical makeover and menu additions. “It would be very difficult to find an event in Culver that the rootbeer stand has not sponsored on some level,” noted Overmyer. “Mark would not have it any other way.”
Overmyer went on to describe some of Damore’s local efforts: running the fireworks campaign for Culver’s Lake Fest (and personally pulling the fireworks barges out on the lake), sponsoring the Lake Fest parade, raising funds or donating food to the Marshall County Humane Society, Culver After Prom, the fireman’s gold outing, Moneterey fire dept., St. Anne’s church, Culver library’s summer reading program, Kiwanis golf outings, Culver Academies, and Culver Elementary school, among others. “Generosity is an attitude that not enough people in this world embrace, but Mark Damore and the Original Rootbeer Stand have made a habit of extending the spirit of giving to the town of Culver,” said Overmyer.
Damore, accepting the award, thanked the Lions and generated a cheerful response by adding that he would like to become a member of the group. “You guys do a lot of things that I don’t even know about,” he said.
Former Culver school nurse Sharon Coffee introduced – to thunderous applause -- the Lions’ Club Citizen of the Year, Janet Overmyer, who retired last October after more than 35 years as secretary at Culver Elementary School. After describing her early years working with Overmyer at the school (where Overmyer began as a cook, Coffee explained), Coffee praised her longtime coworker and friend. “She helped thousands of kids. She had to give out pills, band-aids, and change pants when I wasn’t there, and she continued to do that…she’s been a good gal, a good employee, and a good friend. She deserves (this award).”
Janet Overmyer, who was joined by her husband Rich and two of the couple’s sons at the dinner, expressed her gratitude for the award and addressed the audience with a humorous quip. “I knew I’d been (at the school) too long when I said to Benjamin Short, ‘I used to babysit with your mother,’ and he said no, it was his grandmother!”
CES principal Chuck Kitchell, also in attendance, praised Overmyer for “the number of kids’ lives that she’s been a part of, the number of hugs that she gives and gets. It really was remarkable to watch her work with the kids. It really is thousands of people that she’s touched. She’s sorely missed at the school.”