The Wiscasset Chamber of Commerce awarded resident Katharine Martin-Savage with the Barnes & Smith Lifetime Achievement Award February 7.

The award came as a total surprise to Martin-Savage, even when her daughter unexpectedly dropped in from Washington, D.C., just a few hours before the event.

Stephanie Hergenroeder said she asked to take her mom out for dinner; Martin-Savage told her they were going to the Chamber dinner and felt confident they would be able to accommodate one more person.

However, during the social hour when she saw Lincoln County Administrator John O’Connell, Two Bridges Regional Jail Administrator Mark Westrum, his assistant Mark Anderson,  and some other of her friends that do not usually attend this type of an event, she wondered what they were all doing there.

“But I still didn’t think too much of it,” Martin-Savage said.

“When John O’Connell announced I was the recipient of the Barnes & Smith Award, it came as a total surprise,” Martin-Savage said.

Upon receiving the award, Martin-Savage said: “I am very humbled and grateful for this award, I certainly did not expect this. My first hint should have been when my daughter Stephanie showed up on my doorstep a couple of hours ago from Washington, D.C.”

Martin-Savage received a standing ovation from the members and guests at the Chamber's second annual dinner.

The Barnes & Smith Lifetime Achievement Award was  named in honor of Mary Ellen Barnes and Town Manager Laurie Smith, because they were the two people who worked to get the chamber started in Wiscasset.

It is given to a person who has long standing commitment to the community, the people in it; and someone who has made a positive impact during their lifetime.

Over the years, she has served this community in many capacities, giving of her time, energy and wisdom. She has shown her civic mindedness by serving on Wiscasset’s Board of Selectmen, Budget Committee and the Community Center’s Cooper/Diperri Scholarship Committee. She has worked on various other committees including the Fourth of July and the town’s 250th Celebration, and she said she is not done yet.

She donates her time and her energy giving back to the community through her hours volunteering on various town and county committees, and her participation in the Wiscasset Female Charitable Society and the Chamber of Commerce. She supports the community’s Thanksgiving and Christmas funds.

According to a bio prepared by her three daughters, Martin-Savage was born in Lynnfield, Mass. Her father was a lawyer for AT&T and her mother was a homemaker. She has one brother, Stephen. She graduated from Lynnfield High School in 1960 and attended Katherine Gibbs College in Boston where she did a two-year secretarial program.

Upon completion of her studies, she moved to Washington, D.C. and worked for the Central Intelligence Agency between 1962 and 1964.

In 1964, she married co-worker Gilbert Martin, a widower with one daughter, Stephanie. They had two children, Amy in 1965 and Beth in 1969.

Katharine and Gil moved their family around quite a bit over the next 16 years. They lived in Frankfurt, Germany; Lancaster, California; Springfield, Virginia; Seoul, South Korea; and Korea. They returned to Springfield in 1979.

Throughout these years, many summer vacations included trips to Maine where her parents had a cottage on Orr's Island.

In fall of 1980 Gil retired from the federal government and they moved to Wiscasset. Gilbert passed away that same year.  She joined the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department in 1981.

She married Lewis Savage of Woolwich in 1982. The two continue to live at Seafield Farm in Wiscasset, providing an anchor for an extended family that has travel in its genes.

Her adult daughters have spanned four continents in their work and always enjoy returning to Seafield with their families for holidays and vacations.

She is a cat lover, she is known as the cat lady for her support to the local shelter and the many cats she has adopted over the years.

Martin-Savage has made and maintained friendships throughout her life and continues to visit and host friends from her days in Germany and beyond.

With strong family and community values, she often opens her heart and home in the service of others.

Local folks know of all the good she has done, but perhaps there are a few things they don’t know: she was Junior Prom Queen at Lynnfield High School in 1959; she played hockey, basketball and softball in school; and her parents had to persuade her to continue her secondary education.

She has retired several times (from the CIA,  from two secretarial jobs in Lincoln County Sheriff's Office and in County Security, and also from her job as a processor officer.

In 2003 she became a member of the Lincoln/Sagadahoc Jail Authority as a representative of Lincoln County, and to date shows no signs of retiring.

Charlotte Boynton can be reached at 207-844-4632 or cboynton@wiscassetnewspaper.com.