RUMFORD – Rumford Grange No. 115 gave its annual Citizen of the Year award Saturday night.

Scott Christiansen was the unanimous choice as the outstanding member of the community.

Christiansen, who moved to Maine with his wife, Delores, and four children three years ago, is executive director of the River Valley Growth Council.

Before he joined RVGC, he was with IBM for four years, and was executive director of an agency for the homeless. He also lived among the Navajo Indians working with a mission and clinic.

In 1994, he moved to Mongolia and worked for five years to establish programs for homeless children and rural medical, nutrition and construction programs. In 1998, he went to China to introduce the Chinese to environmental development techniques.

In 2001, he was invited to come to the River Valley and is now working on diversifying and fundamentally restructuring the economy of western Maine.

On accepting the Citizen of the Year plaque, Christiansen said he and his wife were very pleased with Maine. He said, “We didn’t know what the people would be like. When living in California, the people were always too busy, the Navajos don’t talk much, the Mongolians didn’t talk to strangers, and in China there were so many people you would get run over if you stopped to talk. When I first came to Rumford, people greeted me on the street like they really cared. I find Maine people are really genuine. I have found that members of the Grange care about their community and I am humbled by this honor.”

After the presentation, Sylvia Simmons of Byron gave a talk on her antique sewing collection. Her collection dates back as far as 1840. She demonstrated how the items that she had on display were used over the years.