Luncheon will be March 19 at Highland Manor
By Teresa Sargeant
Reporter
The Apopka Area Chamber of Commerce will present Eileen Ricketson with its Lifetime Achievement Award for her 45 years of contribution to The Apopka Chief and as an active community member.
Ricketson, 83, will appear in person to receive the award at the chamber’s Women in Leadership Luncheon on Wednesday, March 19, at Highland Manor in Apopka. The luncheon’s keynote speaker will be Laura Halfpenny, senior director of soccer growth for the U.S. Soccer Federation.
The chamber does not give out the Lifetime Achievement Award every year but wanted to do so to recognize Ricketson’s contributions. On Feb. 13, she sold The Apopka Chief and The Planter to the Mainstreet Daily News, a subsidiary of Orlando-based MARC Media.
“The decision was made because it is the end of an era after over 45 years running the paper, and Eileen’s contributions over the years to the Apopka community have been immense,’ said Dr. Nicholas Grounds, executive director of the Apopka Area Chamber of Commerce. “Eileen exemplifies the meaning of the award because she has never taken the limelight and does her job and civic duties in the humblest way.”
With characteristic humility, Ricketson said that she feels undeserving of the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“I would like all the many wonderful and understanding people that I have met and worked with to be so honored as they are more deserving as they willingly continued to work with me and for me,” she said.
Born in Lineboro, Md., in 1941, Eileen Ricketson spent her childhood on different farms. She understood the value of hard work. As young as 9 years old, she would wake up before dawn to milk cows before heading to school.
In 1958, she graduated from North Carroll High School in Carroll County. Afterward, she attended business classes and held four part-time jobs until gaining full-time employment in Westminster, Md.
Eileen met her future husband John Ricketson through a friend, when John and the friend’s husband were stationed together as Army servicemen in Fort Campbell, Ky. On March 20, 1964, Eileen and John Ricketson married on base. After John was discharged from the Army, Eileen moved to Florida to be with him. Once in Florida, her several jobs included working for state Sen. William A. Shands’ son-in-law, an attorney.
Eileen is the mother of three sons, all born in Gainesville. Her first two sons, twins Jerry and Joey, were born in 1969. Her third son, Jamey, was born in 1971.
In late 1979, John Ricketson reached agreement to purchase The Apopka Chief and The Planter, taking over in early 1980 and assuming the role of publisher in 1982. Around 1985, Eileen began helping at the family’s Apopka Office Supply store and for the last 40 years has poured all her efforts into helping the business and the community.
Over the years, Ricketson took on such vital functions as overseeing subscriptions, invoicing of advertisers, and the Chief’s large legal notice business. Since John’s death in July 2024, Eileen has stepped into an even larger leadership role to continue the Chief’s weekly publication. She has long worked seven days a week.
“Being able to continue to be the caretaker of a historic publication and to be compensated and appreciated by the community of Apopka and its many diverse elements make me thankful for the many blessings God has provided,” she said.
Recounting her entire life, Ricketson considers herself blessed, from her childhood in a rural area and becoming a born-again Christian in a Methodist Church in her early teens, from her school graduation and subsequent employment in several cities, then marrying and raising three children and being a member of Apopka community.
“To be accepted and appreciated by this community will always be a treasure with unlimited boundaries,” Ricketson said.
She not only expressed gratitude for the years of community service by running The Apopka Chief, but also for the ownership transfer to a company that will take good care of the publication: “I have shed many tears of gratefulness these recent days for the privilege of knowing the community will continue to have a caring publisher and community member in charge of The Apopka Chief.”
The women in Leadership Luncheon will take place 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, at Highland Manor, 604 E. Main St., Apopka. Registration is required to attend. Chamber members is $50, and non-Chamber members is $75. Visit shorturl.at/xFk08 to register.
The Apopka Chief is an award-winning weekly newspaper serving the greater Apopka area in Central Florida since 1923.
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