Hixson Kiwanis Club honors Judge Clarence Shattuck

Judge Clarence Shattuck accepts the Howard Sompayrac Community Service Award. From left are club member and County Commissioner Greg Martin, member Dr. Wayne Shearer, member and County Mayor Jim Coppinger, Shattuck, Congressman Chuck Fleischmann, Hixson Kiwanis Club president David Queen and Hamilton County Assessor of Property Marty Haynes.
Judge Clarence Shattuck accepts the Howard Sompayrac Community Service Award. From left are club member and County Commissioner Greg Martin, member Dr. Wayne Shearer, member and County Mayor Jim Coppinger, Shattuck, Congressman Chuck Fleischmann, Hixson Kiwanis Club president David Queen and Hamilton County Assessor of Property Marty Haynes.

For the Hixson Kiwanis Club's annual Howard Sompayrac Community Service Award - given during the club's recent 70th anniversary celebration - members selected someone who's been around even longer than the club has.

Judge Clarence Shattuck, 81, accepted the award during last month's meeting. Club president David Queen said Shattuck's decades of service to the Greater Hixson and North Hamilton community made him an obvious choice.

"He's been a dedicated servant of this community," Queen said during a follow-up interview. "He's shown leadership for a long time."

Shattuck's achievements and positions include being the leader and president of the Boy Scouts of America Mountain Division, being an active member of the various PTA organizations while his children were in school, leading as a Sunday school teacher for decades at St. Peter's Episcopal School and Hixson United Methodist Church, and being recognized and awarded by the Chattanooga Bar Association for his decades of work as a General Sessions Court judge.

Shattuck said he was immensely grateful to the Kiwanis Club for selecting him, especially due to his personal relationship with the award's namesake, former county commissioner Howard Sompayrac.

"He was a friend of mine from way, way back," Shattuck said. "Earning an award named for him was a double honor for me."

Sompayrac was a few years Shattuck's senior, and Shattuck has fond memories of the days when the two played basketball against one another while he was in high school and Sompayrac was attending college in Chattanooga.

The award was named in Sompayrac's honor after his passing in 2009. He was constantly involved in the Hixson community and was a Kiwanis member for more than 30 years.

Shattuck encourages community members looking to volunteer as he has to simply get out in their neighborhoods, because the need for volunteers is always present, he said.

"There are opportunities and organizations everywhere that need help," said Shattuck. "The bottom line is we're all dependent on one another, and the more that each individual puts into it, the more we all get out of it."

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