By Chip Coker KD4C
Huge congratulations are in order for Michael Masterson WT9V, the winner of the annual RWK Warren Bruene Award for 2021. This award is the RWK’s highest honor and is awarded to the RWK Member who has really made a difference in the RWK. The award is traditionally presented at the annual President’s Dinner in January but we will have to make alternate arrangements this year.
According to Andrew Koenig KE5GDB (last year’s Bruene Award winner) who conducted the balloting this year, “the voting wasn’t even close. Michael received four times as many votes as the nearest person”.
It’s not hard to see why.
Michael has done so much for the club. Before being elected RWK Treasurer in 2021, he had a very active role with all the stuff behind the scenes that makes the club operate smoothly. He’s a support administrator with HamClubOnline (the system that we use to maintain club membership) and he’s helped us get the most from using HCOL. He’s also leveraged his IT systems background to help manage some of the repeater controllers. He has also been the friendly face that greets most members for in-person meetings (and twists your arm to buy a raffle ticket). Since being elected Treasurer, he’s done a great job of moving the club accounting to real accounting software.
And if that’s not enough, during the 2020 quarantine he got involved in conducting remote ham radio exams. He’s personally been involved in way over 1,800 remote license exams. Shortly after I was elected President, I asked Michael “Hey, why can’t RWK have its own remote team?”. Michael made it happen, and it’s been a big source of new members for RWK.
He’s also just a really nice guy and is always a good sounding board for ideas and just jumps in an does stuff that needs to be done. Obviously, the members of the RWK have noticed this based on the voting. So thank you Michael for all you have done and continue to do for the RWK! And well-deserved congratulations on such a deserved achievement.
Previous winners of the Bruene Award are Carl Soloman W5SU, Doug Kilgore KD5OUG, Grant Loughlin W5XJ, Danny Siminiuk K5CG, Bill Owens AD5EW, Hal Wolff N5BT (SK) and Andrew Koenig KE5GDB.
Oh, and who is Warren Bruene you ask? All will be answered on our Warren Bruene tribute page: Warren Bruene W5OLY (SK)
