According to a selectboard resolution Chair Sarah Whitfield read aloud Aug. 20, Jacqueline “Jackie” Lowell served many years on the cemetery committee and the historic preservation commission, has so far served 22 years on the planning board and 20 on the ordinance review committee, and has been taking the selectboard’s minutes for 20 years. 

The resolution recognized Lowell “for her outstanding commitment and honor that she has brought upon this community with the 2024 Spirit of America tribute. So ordered, me,” Whitfield said. The board and Simmons applauded as Whitfield then handed Lowell the honor. 

“Well deserved,” Selectman Pamela Dunning said.

“Better not be retiring anytime soon,” Whitfield said, smiling. 

Lowell has no intention to. “I don’t know what I would be doing if I didn’t have minutes to do,” Lowell, who also does them for Edgecomb’s planning board and ORC committee, said in a phone interview Aug. 23. She also has long been part of First Congressional Church of Wiscasset’s Organ Society. 

“I was actually really surprised and thrilled” by the “ Spirit of America” honor, Lowell said. “It was gratifying to be recognized for that,” she said of her decades of public service.

The Spirit of America Foundation, dating to 1990 in Augusta, started the awards to promote volunteerism, the foundation’s website states.