By Darrell Halen
Staff Writer

Observer/Bruce Preston Barbara Coish displays a quilt, one of the many craft pieces she's brought back from Suzdal, Russia, in an exchange program with Windham's sister city. She was named Volunteer of the Year by the board of selectmen for her work with that program and her involvement with WCTV, among other efforts.

She could be enjoying her retirement by staying home. But that wouldn’t suit Barbara Coish.

She’s spent countless hours volunteering in her town, and her work has not gone unnoticed.

The 67-year-old grandmother was recently named Windham’s Volunteer of the Year by the board of selectmen.

A plaque, given to her at the town’s Feb. 11 deliberative session, states that the award is in appreciation “for dedicated and unselfish service to the town of Windham.”

“It was a very nice surprise,” Coish said. “I’m very honored. Truthfully, I enjoy every hour of volunteering that I do. I can’t imagine being retired and just staying home.”

Her award is primarily in recognition for Coish’s volunteer work for Windham Community Television. She broadcasts the board of selectmen’s meetings and public hearings.

It also recognizes her work on the Suzdal Sister Committee and for her service to the Windham Senior Center. “You have to go out and keep busy or you’ll become a couch potato,” she joked.

For the past 11 years, Coish has headed the Suzdal Sister City Committee, a group of residents who promote understanding between Americans and Russians through visits and the sharing of culture.

Suzdal, a 985-year-old community located about 140 miles northeast of Moscow, has about the same population as Windham.

Coish and other committee members have helped Suzdal by financially supporting two orphanages, providing medications for low-income families, bringing the first computer to town, providing library books, and launching plans for a building to provide classes and serve as a cultural center.

Along with other Windham residents, she’s visited Suzdal 18 times.

“Just going over there, all the Russian people are so hospitable,” she said. “They take you in and treat you like family.”

Coish likes to bring back quilts that are made by a group of Russian women. She sells the quilts for them, and brings back the money. She’s also provided them with American fabrics.

The committee promotes visits between the two communities. Coish is hoping a group of Windham students will someday travel to Suzdal.

In 2004, nine Suzdal students and two teachers came to Windham. They lived with area families, attended Windham schools and went sightseeing.

“It’s to encourage each others culture, and when it happens, you find they’re much the same you are,” Coish said. “The kids like sports, study hard, want to go to a university, get jobs, have families.”

In 2000, James F. Collins, then the American ambassador to Russia, wrote to Coish, praising Windham for working to help develop a better relationship between the United States and Russia.

“That gives me goose bumps, when I read that letter,” Coish said.

Coish has lived in Windham for 47 years, but her family – the Zins – have had ties with the town for a century.

She is a member of the Windham School Board. She and husband Ron have a daughter, Karen Mackey, a son, Jonathan, and four grandsons, who range in age from 5 to 17.

It was two family connections that drew Coish to her other volunteer work.

She began volunteering for Windham Community Television in 1988, after her father, a retired builder, remodeled the old police station next to town hall, turning it into WCTV’s first studio.

“I thought at that point in my life it would be nice to start volunteering for something,” Coish said.

Currently, she typically devotes a few hours each week televising the selectmen’s meetings. She likes doing it, she said, because it helps her learn what’s going on in town.

Town Administrator David Sullivan credits Coish for regularly televising the selectmen meetings, which are held almost every week and sometimes run late into the night.

“She pulled in many hours of volunteering to make sure we were broadcast on cable (television),” Sullivan said.

As president of Windham Seniors Inc., Coish helps run the Windham Senior Center. One of her duties is working with other volunteers to serve low-cost meals two days a week to seniors.

Her mother and her aunt were members of the center, and that drew Coish to working there.

Coish grew up in Melrose, Mass., and attended Forsyth School for Dental Hygienists, which was affiliated with Tufts University at the time, after graduating from high school.

She worked for a dentist, and then spent 20 years providing low-cost teeth cleanings to students at Windham area schools for a state program.

She never made more than $3,000 a year. Ron used to say that she spent all her pay on the gas she needed to travel to the schools. But Coish considers the experience to be the beginning of her career in volunteering.

This is not the first time that officials have saluted Coish for her work. She was bestowed the Volunteer of the Year award in 1999.

Coish has a message for anyone who is thinking about getting involved in their community.

“There’s plenty of areas for volunteering, and it’s very rewarding,” she said.