Melinda Abraham received the 2022 Barney Douglas Citizen of the Year award

Gainesville resident Melinda Abraham, recipient of the Gainesville Lions Club’s 2022 Barney Douglas Citizen of the Year Award, isn’t often in the limelight. The award recognizes the many ways she serves her community behind the scenes – and in her kitchen. 

It’s the way the award’s namesake, the late Barney Douglas, worked, quietly helping at local events such as Hootin an Hollarin, local blood drives and Lions Club and other community activities. 

Likewise, for 20-some years, Melinda has spent several hours in her kitchen each April, baking pans of cinnamon rolls from her grandmother’s treasured recipe that bring hundreds of dollars in bids during the Lions Club’s annual fundraising auction each year. The cinnamon rolls honor Melinda’s paternal grandmother, Edna Hannaford, who died in January 2020 at age 93. For this year’s auction, Melinda also made braided bread to honor her maternal grandmother, Dorcas Rackley, who, before her death in September 2021 at age 91, also provided baked goods that brought in hundreds of dollars for each year’s auction. The fundraiser supports Gainesville’s summer ball program and Lions Club scholarships and the club’s other community projects.

She also bakes cinnamon rolls to sell in the bake sale that’s part of the Gainesville PTO’s annual lip sync contest. In the past, Melinda has also baked pans of cinnamon rolls to be served at the elementary school carnival and the high school’s chili-and-cinnamon-roll supper that’s served at the Red-and-White Scrimmage each year. Wherever they’re sold or served, they quickly become a crowd-pleasing favorite. 

Melinda and her husband, John, have been strong promoters of organ donation since their 9-year-old son Matthew died from injuries sustained in a tragic sleepwalking fall at their home in 2005. Melinda’s personalized vehicle license plate, MATGV5, recognizes the five people around the country who received Matt’s donated organs. The Abrahams have kept in touch with the Pennsylvania girl who received Matt’s heart. She’s now a 31-year-old married woman who works as a mental health counselor. 

In addition to their feelings about organ donation, the Abrahams are devoted blood donors. Melinda’s Red Cross Donor cell phone app shows that she’s donated a total of 37 units. John, who began donating even before Matt’s death, has donated a whopping 162 units.

In addition to encouraging organ donation, Melinda and John established an academic scholarship in Matt’s name that, since 2006, has helped more than a dozen GHS graduates with expenses related to their college education. In the beginning, the Abrahams held fundraisers and raffles to raise money for the scholarship fund, which is now self-sustaining and is invested with the Community Foundation of the Ozarks. Each year at least one memorial scholarship is given that pays $250 per college semester, renewable for four years for a total of $2,000. Some years one or more one-time $1,000 scholarship is also given, including two given in 2014, the year Matt would have graduated.

Melinda herself graduated from GHS in 1988, and during her student years, she was active in sports. A few years later, her first two children, Alyssa (now married to Andrew Eller and living in North Little Rock, Arkansas) and Matt, were avid softball, baseball and/or basketball athletes. John and Melinda, along with Melinda’s mom and stepdad, Kay and Bob Young, were always in the stands, cheering them on. 

Now John and Melinda’s third child, Dylan, is taking them in a different direction: band parents. “I never saw myself as a band mom,” Melinda said, laughing and adding that the main difference is that in her new role she has to be quieter. “I can’t be cheering as loud now,” she said.

 The Abrahams support band fundraisers and show up at every band performance, of course, following the band to parade appearances as far away as Bolivar and Stockton. Dylan, starting high school this year, plays the glockenspiel, marimba and percussion instruments. 

In another role, Melinda serves as Ozark County Public Administrator, having been elected and re-elected since Jan. 1, 2005. In that job, she serves as guardian and conservator for incapacitated and disabled residents of the county, managing clients’ financial matters, healthcare and living arrangements, and also serving as personal representative in settling their estates. The caseload averages about 40 individuals per year, she said. 

The job isn’t just about paying bills and dealing with government agencies such as Family Services, the Veterans Administration and Social Security. It also means arranging transportation to doctor and dentist appointments and also listening and talking with clients when they’re having bad days. “It’s a lot of therapy work,” Melinda said

Friends and family who know Melinda say she works extremely hard to make sure her clients’ needs are met. “She goes above and beyond the basic duties of her job,” said Lions Club president Paul Wade. 

The position is one that requires a big heart, and Melinda and John have shown theirs not only in the way they’ve served the community but also in welcoming a child into their family and treating her as one of their own. Now married and a mother herself, Rebecca Gosdin was a teenager and one of Alyssa’s best friends when she landed in a situation where she needed a home. The Abrahams took her in, unofficially adopting her and supporting her throughout high school and college. Rebecca, who now holds a master’s degree in social work, lives in Gainesville with her husband, Cayce, and their son, Lincoln, whom the Abrahams consider their “bonus grandchild.”  

Melinda also serves as secretary/treasurer of the Ozark County Ministerial Alliance, a group of pastors from local churches who maintain a kind of safety net for those who need temporary support. Melinda’s also active in the Gainesville Church of Christ, where she supports John in his role as a church elder, teaches the preschoolers’ class on Bible study nights and also volunteers at least once a month to cook and serve the congregational Wednesday night dinner.

In making their choice for this year’s Citizen of the Year award, Lions Club members agree they’ve selected a recipient who would make Barney Douglas proud.