Jim Payseno was retired when he moved to Maumelle from California, but he immediately jumped into volunteering.
He’s made his mark. In January, he was named Person of the Year by the Maumelle Area Chamber of Commerce.
“I was pretty flattered; I was pretty humbled by that,” he said.
His daughter, Alicia Gillen, is executive director of the chamber. Payseno said she told him that he’d been nominated by a member of the chamber board but that she didn’t have a vote.
“She had to keep it a secret,” he said. “I was very surprised and honored.”
Gillen said, “It is remarkable that our community nominated and voted for my father as Person of the Year.”
“I personally experience all of the hard work, time and love that he puts into the city of Maumelle. For others to see the impact that he makes is the most inspirational gift he could have ever received. He is a true role model, not only for me, but for my daughters and each resident that he encounters. We are all better people because of my daddy.”
Payseno (pronounced Paze-uh-no), 70, said the other two nominees for the honor — Phillip Raborn and Marion Scott Timmons — are his friends.
“I was in good company,” he said.
After living in California for 40 years, Payseno moved to Maumelle in 2006 to be closer to Gillen and his grandchild. He now has three granddaughters.
Gillen immediately enlisted her father to help with chamber events.
“She had ideas, and I had the physical capabilities and mechanical abilities,” Payseno said. He is a Navy veteran and was trained as a welder and mechanic. He worked on a destroyer tender, which is full of shops and repair facilities. “As ships would come into port and they needed work done, the people on a tender go to that ship and do repairs.”
He spent four years in the Navy and was discharged in 1973, when he used his training to be hired at a publicly owned municipal electric company in Sacramento as a mechanic and welder. He spent 28 years with the company.
“I loved it,” he said. “[A welder is] what I had wanted to be since high school.”
When Payseno decided to move to Maumelle, he said, Gillen helped him find a home, where he still lives.
He recalled that soon after he relocated, he went with his daughter to a fundraiser for Counting on Each Other Inc. at the senior center. A woman approached him and asked if he’d volunteer with the nonprofit organization.
Payseno did, and now he is vice chairman of the board.
“We advocate for the seniors and senior center in Maumelle,” he said. “Through our fundraisers, we provide dental assistance for low-income seniors. We want [to help] people who are at that poverty level who will avoid having dental work done
because they can’t afford it.”
A few years ago, the organization received a $5,000 grant from Delta Dental, as well as a $10,000 grant after that.
“That goes to our causes: helping the Center on the Lake and dental program,” he said.
Two major fundraisers for Counting on Each Other Inc. are conducted. One is Shred It! in which people “drop off all their documents and paperwork they’ve been sitting on and come through and give us a small donation, and we have the Shred it! truck on-site; volunteers unload cars. We’ll raise $2,000 or $3,000 on a Saturday morning,” he said.
Find a Treasure, a “very, very large garage sale,” is held in the spring and fall, and the organization makes up to $5,000 on donated items, Payseno said.
“Jim is one of those kind of people that no matter what needs to be done, he gets it done,” said David Hodges, chairman of Counting on Each Other Inc.
“It’s like, you don’t even ask for volunteers because you know Jim’s going to do it — not just for the board, things for the chamber, around his neighborhood, you name it. If somebody needs help, he’s there.”
Rose Burroughs, transportation coordinator for Center on the Lake, said with a laugh that Payseno “does a lot of things here.”
“He does shuttle service for me on Wednesdays … and has for many, many years,” she said. “He’s a very dependable and likeable driver.”
She said Payseno and a “van buddy” pick up members and bring them to the center on Wednesdays.
Burroughs said he also drives for field trips.
“Both those services right there are huge for our members,” she said.
“When our activities coordinator schedules field trips or they have a men’s club outing, he’ll drive the van. … They go to Pine Bluff, to Jacksonville to the Air Force Base. They go to the horse races. It’s a challenge to get volunteers for that; it’s usually on a Saturday. He gives up his weekends for that.”
Another passion of Payseno’s is the Maumelle Veterans Memorial Committee, of which he is president.
“We have a very nice memorial, built back in 2005 and dedicated in 2006, and it recognizes veterans who have served present, past. … You don’t have to be in a war,” he said. “You don’t have to serve across the waters in a foreign country. You just have to be a military person.”
Anyone may purchase a brick for the memorial, he said.
Payseno’s three granddaughters inspired him to volunteer at the elementary schools in Maumelle, too, through the Watch Dog program.
“You go to an elementary school and get a little pass and wander the halls, check outside, make sure things aren’t going awry,” he said. “My granddaughters were going to school there at the time, and I’d help them with math, help them read.”
He said he enjoys being around children, which led him to his next volunteer gig — portraying Santa Claus. For the past four years, Payseno has donned the red suit, which comes with padding, and beard to listen to the Christmas wishes of Maumelle children.
“They asked me at Lions Club if I’d be Santa Claus for their pancake breakfast at the community center,” he said. “Kids get to talk to Santa Claus, and I give the little candy canes, and they tell me what they want for Christmas. It’s a fun deal.
“It’s really fun to see my granddaughters, who have never seen me with a beard, react to it.”
Now that his two younger granddaughters are 11 and 12, they help him out as elves, he said.
“I know a lot of kids through elementary school, … and it’s fun to see them not know who is [dressed as]
Santa Claus. It just makes me feel good that they see Santa Claus — they don’t see me.”
This year, he rode in the back of a pickup truck in the Maumelle Christmas parade, he said, and it warmed his heart to hear children say, “Here comes Santa Claus!”
His hair is white, so he started growing a beard in January.
“It’s doing really, really well. I may not use the fake beard next year. I’ll see here in a few months what [my beard] looks like.”
Underneath the costume will be the one and only Jim Payseno, Person of the Year.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.