SMOKEY POINT — Duane Weston has volunteered countless hours of community service over the course of several decades in Arlington, and for his efforts he’ll be receiving the Stillaguamish Senior Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

The sixth annual award breakfast will take place at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 14, at the Stilly Senior Center, located at 19308 Smokey Point Blvd.

According to Weston, he’s not much for the limelight.

“I just see a need of interest and fill it,” said Weston, who retired as the chief forester and president of Pilchuck Tree Farm in 2001, but still maintains a part-time position as director of external affairs, dealing with recreational users.

Weston’s volunteer activities have included leadership of the Arlington Volunteer Search and Rescue from 1968-1971. The organization had 31 missions in 1971 alone. He also served the Arlington Methodist Church as representative to its Boy Scout troop and Explorer Search and Rescue post.

After the Arlington United Methodist Church merged with the Arlington United Church of Christ to become the Arlington United Church, Weston continued to serve the church in a number of positions, including moderator, finance chair and church trustee.

Weston’s Scouting activities have included stints as committee chair of Troop 86 in Stanwood and Scoutmaster of Arlington’s Troop 29 in 1983. He earned the Tyee District Award of Merit and the Silver Beaver Awards for his volunteer efforts, which also included forestry advice at the Boy Scout camp and a number of years on the council board.

In the fall of 1980, Weston became one of the founders of the Arlington Community Food Bank. He went on to serve on its board for 29 years, including a run as its president from 1996-2010.

Among the activities in which Weston is still involved are the Snohomish-to-Arlington Trail Coalition and the Washington Forest Protection Association. He recently retired from the board of the Snohomish Conservation District, where he had served as chair the past few years. He still serves on the Stillaguamish Watershed Council and works on behalf of the recovery of the Chinook salmon in the Stillaguamish River. He’s also served on the forestland committee for Snohomish County’s Growth Management Plan.

His previous awards have included Forester of the Year in 1973 from the Puget Sound Section Society of American Foresters, Washington State Tree Farmer of the Year in 1992 from the American Tree Farm System and the Zalesky Lifetime Achievement Award in Forestry from the Cascade Land Conservancy in 2007.

Weston was born in Spokane in 1938 and grew up on a farm just outside the city. He graduated from Spokane’s North Central High School in 1957, after spending much his of time exploring and pioneering in the surrounding wooded and open areas. After graduation, he worked summers for the U.S. Forest Service in Idaho and enrolled at the University of Washington, where he graduated in 1962 with a forestry degree.

Duane Weston met his future wife, Anna Marie Hall, while attending college, and they married in 1963, after he’d completed six months active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps and accepted a job as a forester at the Pilchuck Tree Farm northeast of Arlington. The Westons now have two married sons and three grandchildren.

Previous Stillaguamish Senior Center Lifetime Achievement Award winners include Howard Christianson, Ruth and Harry Yost, Don Meier, Dick Post and Yolanda Larsen.

The breakfast concludes at 9 a.m.

Seating is limited, so individuals interested in attending the event must contact the Stilly Senior Center for reservations at 360-653-4551.