Peters is this year's recipient of the Cooperstown Rotary Club's Christopher J. Warrell Community Service Award. He did not attend the club's year-end pass the gavel meeting when the award is normally presented because, typically, was involved in community service. He was attending band camp for the Cooperstown Community Band for which he has been a driving force since he came to the village almost a half century ago.

Peters received the award at the following meeting and in his typical, unassuming way said he was surprised and joked that he couldn't comment of the judgment of the selection committee.

For thirty years, Peters has served on the village water and sewer board and chaired the sewer board since 1977.

He gladly stepped up to the plate last year shortly after Carol Waller was elected mayor, when she tapped him to serve an unfilled one-year term on the board of trustees.

"I'm happy to support the mayor and the village and will give it my best," he said at the time.

Waller, a previous recipient of the award, said "he is most deserving of the award. He has given countless hours to the village."

He turned his trustee salary over to the village to pay for new drapes for the village offices, she said.

Peters kept his promise to his wife that he would be on the board for only year, but he now chairs both the sewer and water boards, the zebra mussel committee and the Otsego Lake Watershed Supervisory Committee.

One former mayor used to joke that Peters "dealt with new and used water."

Waller said he was instrumental in the village's being awarded a NYSERDA grant for the water treatment plant and a grant from the Scriven Foundation to help with zebra mussel control.

In previous years, he was active in scouting and an attempt to start a sea scout troop in Cooperstown. He has also been an instructor for boater safety courses.

And he was the first chairman of the OCCA's Otsego Lake Committee.

Peters is a biochemist and retired from Bassett 15 years ago after having worked in the research lab since 1955. He still holds the title Research Scientist Emeritus.

We applaud the Rotary Club's choice for this year's award and hope others will follow his example of community service which has helped make Cooperstown a better place to live.

"Rotary's motto is 'service above self' and I can't think of a better person to receive the award," mayor Waller said.