Lloyd and Collette Coombs will receive the 2015 Distinguished Service Award at the 13th annual recognition dinner and silent auction hosted by the Woolwich Historical Society.

This year’s event will be held at the Taste of Maine Restaurant on Saturday, Sept. 26. It begins at 5 p.m. with a social hour and silent auction. A buffet dinner will follow at 6 p.m. with presentation of the award afterwards. Tickets are $30 each and are available from Debbie Locke at 207-443-5684 or emailing joyful@gwi.net; RSVP by Monday, Sept. 21.

The Coombses were humbled, but quite pleased when they learned they were to be this year’s guests of honor.

“There are so many hardworking volunteers in town who are just as deserving of recognition,” Collette Coombs told the newspaper Tuesday. Both she and Lloyd have been active in the community since they chose to make Woolwich their home in 1988.

The Coombses didn’t come from very far away. Both are originally from Bath and graduates of Bath High School (now Morse High School). They met one another 50 years ago at Sheppard’s, a shoe store once located on Front Street a few doors down from Wilson’s Drug Store.

“I went in for a pair of shoes and came away with a bride,” Lloyd Coombs said, adding that Colette was working there at the time as a clerk.

They married in 1965 at the chapel of the former Brunswick Naval Air Station and then moved to Woolwich. They rented an apartment on River Road, but eventually returned to Bath where bought a home and resided 20 years.

For 43 years, Lloyd Coombs worked for the U.S. Navy as director of internal operations. Although he made his career in the Navy, he actually served two years in the Army.

Not long after the Coombses returned to Woolwich (they had a home built on Milt Carlton Road), they went to work volunteering in the community.

Both became members of the Woolwich Historical Society; Colette Coombs still serves on the executive committee. They are Woolwich Day volunteers and active in the community’s annual Yule Sing celebration and Veteran’s Day service, both of which are held at the historic Nequasset Meeting House. For many years Colette Coombs has served as a ballot clerk.

The Coombses didn’t sever ties with their other hometown after moving to Woolwich. They’re both members of the Bath High School Alumni Association and each has served as past alumni president. Colette Coombs volunteers at the Bath Y and not long ago was named the Y’s “Volunteer of the Year.” She’s also a member and past president of the Bath chapter of Beta Sigma Phi, a sorority for women. She coordinates the sorority’s annual Founder’s Day program.

Lloyd Coombs is currently serving his fourth term on the Woolwich Board of Selectmen. He’s also the former town administrator/town clerk.

“I had actually served two terms on the selectboard and was nearing retirement from the Navy when the position of Woolwich administrative assistant was created,” he said. “I applied and was hired and stayed on for 10 years from about 1995 to 2005.

“At one point it became town administrator and town clerk. After I retired from that,” he continued, “I ran again for selectman and won, and then ran again and was reelected for the term I’m serving now that expires in Dec. 2016.”

Along the way Lloyd Coombs became a notary public. He’s married a number of couples over the years, several at the Nequasset Meeting House.

Like his wife, he belongs to a fraternal organization. He’s a 50-year member of the Masons, Solar Star Lodge #14 in Bath and also a member of the Kora Shriners.

The Coombses have one son, Benjamin. He and his wife Molly recently bought a home in Woolwich at the corner of Nequasset Road and Route 1. They have two small children, Alouise and Samuel. Benjamin Coombs is an artesian glassblower. His works were recently exhibited at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland. He plans to open a shop featuring his work in Woolwich.