Sigrid Festersen Volunteer of the Year Award
About the Sigrid Festersen Volunteer of the Year Award
Aksarben Curling is, and always has been, a volunteer led organization – we literally couldn’t do what we do without people stepping up to keep things going. Our new Sigrid Festersen Volunteer of the Year award provides a way for us to honor Aksarben Curling members who go above and beyond.
Throughout the history of Aksarben Curling, Sigrid Festersen led, served, and provided continuity from one generation to the next. She was a terrific curler and an advocate for women's curling everywhere. She saw our organization through successes, setbacks, building moves, and explosive growth.
All future success of curling in Omaha can be traced back to a foundation Sigrid was so deeply involved with.
Sean Morrison, past Aksarben Curling President, shared that at the time he first proposed this award, the vision was that Sigrid would be able to present it to the first winner. Sadly, we lost Sigrid in 2022 and couldn’t make that happen. But, Sigrid’s spirit lives on within our organization.
This year, the Aksarben Curling Board of Directors voted to honor Nic Ridder with this award.
If you’ve helped with any of our Learn to Curls, it’s likely that Nic was there – in a pair of very bright pants, armed with helpful tips and advice and meeting his quota of fitting in two curling puns. And while he’s helped so many new curlers slide out of the hack with their first rock, he’s also the key driving force behind organizing our league operations.
No matter the number of teams and number of weeks, Nic can put together a structure for how a league should run. He’s been instrumental in mapping out ways to get more curlers into popular leagues by adding bye weeks.
More structured leagues and better ways of naming a champion for each goes a long way in raising the overall competitive level within our organization, which in turn helps with retention as our curlers become more experienced.
We’ve leaned in to his expertise as we map out what leagues will look like with our future jump to dedicated ice, and the additional curlers and leagues that will bring. Our leagues and learn to curls are at the core of what we do, and we couldn’t do either without Nic.
While it seems like Ridder has been around forever, he only started curling back in 2018. He was quick to jump in and help where needed – offering not only ideas on where we could improve operations, but giving time and passion to every project he helps with. He perfectly illustrates the power of our volunteers, and we’re lucky to have him.
When the Aksarben Curling Board of Directors met to nominate a volunteer to receive this award, it was unanimous – we wanted to honor Nancy Myers.
"Nancy exemplifies all the best of what Aksarben Curling is. She's always willing to share her knowledge, and her love for the sport is evident in everything she does. She's a strong advocate for our college curlers, and has always been forthcoming in supporting others' voices within our organization. Let's be honest - Nancy IS college curling at Aksarben, and the amount of hours she has logged teaching and mentoring our student athletes is amazing. On top of that, she's always willing to lend at hand wherever it's needed - learn to curls, equipment, juniors, or even in her past time on the Board. We couldn't be more honored to be able to present Nancy with our first Sigid Festerson Volunteer of the Year award."
-Lisa Truesdell, Club President on behalf of the Board.
-Harrison Hruby 2017-19 UNL Curling Club President
"Nancy being awarded Volunteer of the Year
Filled UNO Curling with great cheer
We had an amazing first season
And Nancy was the reason
From afternoon games to practices late at night
Nancy’s passion for curling shown bright
And despite the icy chills
Nancy enthusiastically helped us with our strategy and skills
From practicing hit and rolls
To assisting us with our goals
The spirit of curling was in the air
Thanks to Nancy volunteering with great care
Even when things did not go as planned
Nancy had a way of making college curling grand
And we can’t say it enough but this will have to do
Thank you, Nancy, thank you"
-Kali Odd, on behalf of the UNO Curling Club
