GALLIPOLIS — Jessie Payne has been named the 2009 Senior Hero in the “Everyday Heroes” recognition program sponsored by the Gallia County Chapter of the American Red Cross.

She will receiveed her award, sponsored by Holzer Clinic, at a recognition breakfast set for Thursday, June 18 at 7:30 a.m. at the Gallia County Senior Resource Center.

Tickets for the breakfast ar $10 apiece and can be obtained from the Red Cross office in Gallipolis, 444 Second Ave., phone 446-8555.

Jessie has influenced many youth throughout her life by the role model she has been for them and through the work she has done with them.

She started out as a Sunday School teacher at the Corinth Missionary Baptist Church and currently serves as their Sunday School superintendent. Jessie has also been a Girl’s Guild leader and she is currently the vice president of the Gallia Sub-District Sunday School and the BTU Institute.

A very up-standing, devoted and committed community citizen in addition to being a loving wife and mother, Jessie does volunteer work at Holzer Medical Center, where she has volunteered about 23,500 hours since March 1973.

Jessie volunteers as the “Surgical Host” at the hospital, where she works the desk in the surgery waiting room, taking families to the consultation room, locating families for the doctors, and serving snacks and refreshments to those waiting on their loved ones in surgery. Jessie also volunteers in the emergency room, where she checks to see if the patients or staff need anything she can get for them.

Jessie is very busy in the county as she is the Gallia County vice president for the NAACP Branch, which serves Gallia, Jackson and Lawrence counties. Jessie travels every month to one of these three counties for a monthly meeting.

Jessie travels three or four times a year to the OVRDC (Ohio Valley Regional Development Commission) meetings and minority caucus meetings. She is a board member of the Gallia County Emancipation Day Celebration, the Gallia County Black History Month Committee, and the Gallia-Meigs Community Action Agency Board.

Because of all that Jessie does, demonstrating how much she cares for people, this quote seems to have been made about her: “The high road to service is traveled with integrity, compassion and understanding … people don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care.”

Through all of Jessie’s Christian, community and service work, she shows us the “power of attitude” that says “our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but how we react to what happens, not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life.”

Jessie believes that courage does not always roar; sometimes it is the quiet voice at the end of the day that says; “I will try again tomorrow.”