A graduate student of Ponoka Composite High School recently earned the coveted 2011 Queen’s Golden Jubilee Citizenship Medal.
Carling Matejka spent her last years at the school co-chairing student council; she also arranged a hypnotist show for the graduating class of 2011.
Matejka has volunteered at Ponoka’s hospitals, she’s fed the homeless with Loaves and Fishes in Red Deer, and volunteered at the Stampede, amid her many charitable accomplishments.
Since she was involved in 4-H Matejka also spent her time with agricultural organizations.
“Being in 4-H, volunteers give so much of their time,” Matejka said. “They’ve shaped the individual I’ve become.”
It was in a letter that Matejka learned she was going to receive the prestigious award. “I was pretty shocked, pretty amazed that a small-town person like me could receive such an award.”
Matejka was selected from more than 160 winners of the Premier Citizenship Award for the Golden Jubilee Medal. She was nominated for the award by Ian Rawlinson, principal of Ponoka Composite High School, and received it at a ceremony at the school in September.
“She was outstanding,” said Rawlinson. “It’s one thing to volunteer, it’s another to do it for the right reasons. She did everything for the right reasons.”
Rawlinson remembers how positive Matejka was and how she never promoted herself but worked to get people together.“ She was an exemplary kid.”
Matejka is enrolled at Grant MacEwan University for a bachelor of science degree and in January can apply at the University of Calgary for veterinary medicine. Matejka says animals have taught her a lot of responsibility. “They’re something that can’t help themselves, they need humans to help them.”
Donald Ethell, Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, presented Matejka, along with five of the other seven Alberta students, with their medals at the Government House in Edmonton on June 12.
The Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal was created in 2002 in honour of the Queen’s 50th anniversary of the accession.