By Monty Siekerman
Beth Fenton has resigned from village council to devote time volunteering for the Red Cross in a position she describes as “challenging and rewarding.” 

In her new capacity with the Red Cross, Beth will be deployed as part of a disaster action team in the United State or internationally.  She has been deployed twice in the past year, once to Florida for Hurricane Irma, then to North Carolina for Hurricane Florence.

She said that members of the disaster action teams work 12-hour days for seven days, then have a day off. She described the experiences as “emotionally intense.” 

She has also been active in the community with the Lions Club, ambulance board, and Community Improvement Corporation, and Town and Gown.

She was appointed to council in 2011 to fill three years of an unexpired term and has now completed three out of four years of the term that she was elected to. Her last day on council was Nov. 30. Ken Laurie has been appointed by council to fill her unexpired term of one year. The Ada Icon will report on his appointment on Sunday evening.

While on council, Beth served as chair of the utilities committee. During that time, the village built a new $16 million wastewater treatment plant, which has been the largest building project in Ada up until this time. (The new $30 million ONU Kennedy Engineering Building, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2019, will top the cost of the wastewater treatment plant in terms of dollars spent.)

Beth said her husband Howard has been very supportive of her decision to help the Red Cross. He retired in August after having taught law at Ohio Northern for 30 years. He began the Center for Democratic Governance and Rule of Law program at the ONU law school in 2005, securing large grants from the State Department to finance the program for students from emerging democracies throughout the world.