The tall, distinguished gentleman with the red vest delivers mail and helps patients one Wednesday a month at Southwest Regional Medical Center.
At age 89, he moves with deliberate ease and a ready smile, talking to old friends and making new ones on his rounds as a hospital escort volunteer. Meet John Gusic, the man who gave the official name to volunteering in Greene County and from all accounts, in Pennsylvania as well.
"Do you remember when President Reagan asked for stronger volunteer efforts in the private sector?" asked Gusic, who still has the piercing, steady gaze of the World War II fighter pilot he once was.
Picking this one shining moment from a lifetime of community service is a good way to show what it takes to be an organizer as inspired as Gusic. The letters, official proclamations and newspaper clippings carefully preserved in an album document how one man was moved by the words of his Commander in Chief to do something that would bring hundreds of Greene County volunteers to the attention of the nation.
It was 1982 when President Reagan's call to volunteer inspired Gusic into action. As longtime public relations chairman of the Waynesburg Pennsylvania Elks Lodge 757, he knew what to do.
"My idea was that we would support the president and honor Greene County volunteers with a banquet on April 3. Every day for a month there was an article in the newspaper about a different volunteer group so people could read about the important work they did."
Gusic was savvy enough to send letters, make phone calls and through the clout of the Elks, contact everyone from the mayor of Waynesburg to the president of the United States. What started out as a great idea snowballed into a grand production that showed the world what civic volunteers were doing in Small Town America.
In 1982, the mayor of Waynesburg and the county commissioners declared the week of March 29 to April 3 as Volunteer Appreciation Week. But the real tribute to Gusic's tireless promotion came when Gov. Richard Thornburgh proclaimed April 18-24 as Pennsylvania's first Volunteer Appreciation Week that same year.
The White House showed its appreciation as well. At that 1982 volunteer recognition banquet in Waynesburg, national Elks officials joined guest speaker Michael Robinson from Reagan's Task Force on Private Sector Initiatives to congratulate the volunteers of Greene County.
"I've known John all my life – I went to school with his kids," insurance businessman and fellow civic volunteer Chuck Baily said. "I was at that banquet and it really was a moment to remember. Those articles in the paper honoring what volunteers were already doing was such a good example of what makes a community both survive and prosper – people helping people."
Gusic's talent for innovation led to golf outings that have become a fundraising mainstay for other organizations. His entrepreneurial spirit was reflected in his own businesses – a record store on High Street that became M&G Television, and years selling insurance. And through it all, imagining, then managing hundreds of fundraising events that made life in Greene County a little more enjoyable, a little more helpful to those in need. Does it come as any surprise that Gusic was the president of the Optimist Club? Or that he passed out pins with umbrellas on them in an act of cheerful promotion of Rain Day at Elks conventions?
John and Jean Gusic's cozy kitchen has all the charm of the 1950s with the added artistic touch of hand-thrown canisters, bowls and mugs. Daughter Linda Winegar of Graysville is the potter, sons David and Bill live with their families in New Jersey and South Carolina, respectively, and the overflow of family photos turns the refrigerator door into the all-American family shrine. Morning tea gets sipped at the kitchen table as plans are hatched for the day ahead.
"We don't do as much as we used to," Jean Gusic admitted. "We're getting too old to deliver Meals on Wheels, especially in the winter, but we're still signed up if they need someone to fill in. I graduated in 1941 and everything was for the war effort. People had to work together, so that's what we do."
A registered nurse who served in the Army in the Philippines and Japan, Jean Gusic was hired by Greene County Memorial Hospital and met her future husband on a blind date. They married in 1949 and moved into their present home on 9th Street Waynesburg.
Phone calls and letters of congratulations are coming from around the neighborhood and around the country now. Because of his years of service and community involvement Gusic is a candidate for Esteemed Loyal Knight at the Elks national convention in Portland, Ore., in July.
"If you ask me what project I'm most proud of it's the Elks Home Service Program in Pennsylvania. The state desperately needed this service and in 1963 we had one van and one nurse. Now we have 25 registered nurses to serve 67 counties and it's free to persons with disabilities and there's no age restriction."