Phil Pasteris Named 2020 Tigard’s First Citizen

Phil Pasteris has been named as the 2020 recipient of the Tigard’s First Citizen award.   This award recognizes someone who has made in-depth, long-term volunteer contributions to the Tigard community over the years. The winner is active, involved, interested and enthusiastic about making Tigard a nice place to live and work. This individual excels in any area of unpaid endeavor of education, social services, youth work, and community improvement of public services. This award is given in the spirit of all volunteers who remain unknown. The recipient joins the ranks of those previously honored in continually striving to improve the Tigard Area. 

Phil Pasteris has been a Tigard resident for 42 years. During his time in Tigard, he has been volunteering for many organizations that help make Tigard a great place to live.

A colleague of Phil said he is “a dedicated and extraordinarily kind “people connector” with an unselfish and boundless energy and enthusiasm for bringing the Tigard community together!”

Some of the organizations that Phil has volunteered for are the Tualatin Valley Community Band, Tigard Old Fashioned 4^th of July Fireworks, Tigard Public Library and the Tigard Historical Association.  He also worked with the City of Tigard in the early 1980s to amend the Tigard Development Plan, chaired a Neighborhood Planning Organization and served as an expert in hydrology and water supply for the 1999 Tigard Citizen’s Task Force for Safe Drinking Water.

Phil is the volunteer photographer for the Tigard Old Fashioned 4^th of July Fireworks. This event is put on by a group of volunteers every year on the 4^th of July at Tigard High School.  Phil remembered the first 4^th of July Fireworks watching from the Tigard Pool parking lot with his family as paper wrappings from the fireworks landed nearby. 

Phil also has been a part of The Friends of the Tigard Library for over 10 years. He has worked behind the scenes to move boxes full of donated books from the library to storage in support of the Friends of the Library book sales.  He is also known as the unofficial public greeter and photographer making the Tigard Library’s Annual Book Sale fundraiser a fun and interesting event.

Phil has been heavily involved in the Tigard Historical Association. His roles include being the Secretary, photographer and webmaster. There is one moment that specifically stood out to his nominator was Phil’s help with welcoming nearly 200 visitors to the John Tigard House to wish Curtis Tigard a Happy Birthday prior to his passing.  Phil made sure to commemorate the event with dozens of photos on the THA webpage available to everyone.  Phil stated that “Curtis was a humble icon who served his country during World War II, loved kids and the city in which he lived for 109 years.”

As President of the Tualatin Valley Community Band, Phil organizes a volunteer Board of Directors, completes grant funding requests, produces annual budgets with input from band members, books concert and rehearsal venues, shares photography with his wife Rosemary, performs webmaster duties and tries to find time to practice his clarinet!.  You can tell that he recognizes the power of music to unite people of all ages and abilities and supports and encourages a talented and dedicated community-led group of musicians, teachers, and composers who love what they do.  Phil worked with the City of Tigard, the late Martha Bishop and Kenny Scheckla to create the Bishop-Scheckla Gazebo in Cook Park.  The gazebo was dedicated in 1999 and is an outdoor Carnegie Hall; not a bad seat in the park!  Since 1988, the Tualatin Valley Community Band has provided free concerts to Tigard residents at the Tigard Public Library, TTSD High School auditoriums, the 4^th of July Fireworks at Tigard High Stadium, summer concert in Cook Park and also at past Downtown Tigard Tree lightings.  Phil has always said that “live music is magic for the audience and the musicians.”

As you can see Phil has engaged at a broad level across the Tigard community on behalf of the community.  It is obvious he cares deeply about the place that he lives. In all his roles he is always selflessly looking out for the betterment of the community at large.

Please join us in congratulating Phil on his award and thanking him for his service to our Tigard community.  His award will be formally presented with other Tigard volunteer and business awards at Tigard’s 2020 Shining Stars Community Awards Gala, held on Friday, October 23rd from 7-9 p.m. virtually on the Tigard Chamber Facebook page and YouTube channel. Join in on the celebration by pre-ordering dinner from De Angelo’s Catering, get dressed up and join the conversation online while enjoying the award ceremony from the comfort of your home.

For further details about the Tigard Shining Stars Community Awards Gala, please contact the Tigard Chamber of Commerce at 503-639-1656 or at Jessica@tigardchamber.org, or go to our website at www.Tigardchamber.org.