Kiwanis President Ted Watson said when Jerri Stroud was nominated for the club’s citizen of the year award, he thought surely he’d been handed a nomination for someone who had already been honored.

“When I realized her name wasn’t on the trophy, I perked up,” he said. “Because we had a really, really good candidate.”

Watson described her as a person whose service to the community “makes towns like Andalusia a wonderful place to live.”

He said as an educator, she was in the business of “stomping out ignorance.”

“She had so much to do with so many people of distinction,” he said. “Andalusia High School has produced a number of doctors, and many of them were a direct result of her standards.

“She taught anatomy,” he said. “And she had an uncanny ability to get the best of every student in the class. She didn’t care if she had to make them made to get them to produce. She did what she had to do.”

Mrs. Stroud also is in demand as a wedding director.

“People knew if she was involved, it would be done right,” he said. “And brides want things done right.”

She also directs the city’s ambassador program.

“She has really made the program sizzle,” Watson said. “She has helped us showcase the best and brightest of our youth.”

In accepting the award, presented at the club’s annual banquet last night, Stroud said, “Whatever I have done, I have done from my heart.”

She said she followed her husband, who was a native, here.

“But Andalusia became my home,” she said. “I am interested in Andalusia and all that is going on here.

I am amazed at all that has been done in the 40 years I have lived here, and I want it to continue to grow.”