“Well hey, neighbor!”, local man recognized by city for neighborly efforts

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Being a good neighbor to some seems like a lost art, but one man is doing his best as president of his neighborhood association.

George Gootee was awarded the Neighborhood Builder’s Mortar Award for 2023 by Bowling Green’s Neighborhood and Community Services Department this month for his efforts to keep his neighborhood tight. Gootee told News 40 that he doesn’t feel deserving of the award, but was humbled to receive it.

He became the president of the Beddington Park Neighborhood Association just 3 years ago, and since then has put together neighborhood gatherings a couple of times a year just to get everyone together and have some food and fun. He said he thinks it’s important to keep that connection that many in the world don’t seem to have anymore.

Gootee told News 40 “it’s just how our culture and society is these days, we carry a computer in our pocket which is great, you have communication right at your fingertips and can look things up but it’s gotten us away from face to face interaction. We’re all so busy and we don’t have the time, or we think we don’t have time to get to know our neighbor.”

He recalled how it was when he was growing up, though everyone wasn’t close in proximity, people did not shy away from coming to visit or stopping and talking for a while. Gootee said he remembers an older lady that lived near them, and he would go to her house a couple of times a week to just talk. “She would give me cookies and milk, she had national geographic magazines. She wasn’t my grandmother but it was that kind of feel, and I think it’s the little things that manifest into bigger things later on…”

Funny enough, Gootee actually nominated his predecessor Woodrow Wilson for the award, and Wilson nominated Gootee. Of course they didn’t admit it to each other, so at the award ceremony it was surprising to them both to be called.

News 40 caught up with Wilson as well, who said he thinks Gootee is doing a great job as president and that these gatherings they’ve been having are a positive impact for their small 25 house neighborhood. Wilson said he remembers leaving house doors unlocked when he was growing up out in the country, something many of us wouldn’t dream of these days. Wilson told News 40 things are very different than when he was a child but it’s important to try and maintain connections with people.

Gootee ended his interview by saying “My thing is, just try to be the kind of person you would want to be living next to.”