Chuck Hill is winner of County’s fourth annual Chuck Catino Community Leadership Award

PIMA COUNTY — Charles “Chuck” Hill is the fourth recipient of the Chuck Catino Community Leadership Award, named for the longtime volunteer and founder of the Born Again Jocks Association (BAJA) Sporting Club. Pima County District 4 Supervisor Steve Christy presented the award to Hill at the May 7 Board of Supervisors meeting.

Hill’s record of community service is extensive. The Michigan native is an active volunteer with the Green Valley Fire Corps, Green Valley Recreation Camera Club, the Southern Arizona Mountain Bike Association and the Santa Cruz Valley Bicycle Advocate Committee, among others.

With the Camera Club, Hill organizes four to five multimedia presentations per year for 800-plus members and assists fellow photographers with their equipment. Hill also has given some 2,500 hours of support to the Green Valley Fire District as a field trainer, active recruiter, grant writer and photographer at District events. In addition, the biking and hiking communities of Green Valley know him well.

“Whether he is volunteering for the Green Valley Fire Corps, working on bike trails, leading community safety grants, or championing the Ride of Silence in hopes of improving bicycle safety awareness, Chuck is an ‘energizer bunny’ who simply wants to make people and the community around him better,” wrote Chuck Wunder, fire chief of the Green Valley Fire District.

Hill also was a regular at twice-monthly trail work events to complete the Arizona National Scenic Trail between Hope Camp in Saguaro National Park and the Coronado National Forest in Santa Rita Mountains.

Hill never came alone to the trail-building activities, wrote Mark Flint, Trails Program coordinator for Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation. “He usually had three or four friends from Green Valley with him. Apparently, he could be pretty persuasive.”

The Catino Award isn’t the first time Hill has been on the receiving end of honors. The Tucson-Pima County Bicycle Advisory Committee named him their Bicycle Advocate of the Year in 2012. The Green Valley Fire Corps honored him as Volunteer of the Year in 2016. A year later, the Rotary Club of Green Valley gave him their Community Service Award for outstanding volunteer service.

Nominees for the Catino Award must be at least 45 years of age and be unpaid volunteers. Nominations are accepted each fall, then candidates are recommended to the Parks and Recreation Commission in February. Contact Valerie Samoy at 520-724-5220 for details.