The Shaunavon Chamber of Commerce has selected the town's 2019 citizen of the year during National Volunteer Week.

Oren Scribner was chosen by the anonymous selection committee and recently found out he'd be this year's Shaunavon Citizen of the Year.

"I was surprised, I wasn't expecting it," he said reflecting on when he'd been told the news. "Actually I was out volunteering at the golf course when I heard, so I was just surprised. You never expect it, that's not why you're volunteering."

Scribner has been volunteering in the Shaunavon area for about 40 years now and his recent volunteer work includes being the president of the Rock Creek Golf Club, president of the Prairie Sky Estates, a member of the Shaunavon Economic Development Committee, a member of the Frenchman River Valley Rural Development Corporation, and a helper at the local curling rink and the Dark Horse Theatre.

"If there is something to do, and somebody gotta do it, you just do it, that's the way I [learned]," Scribner said.

The late Jean Scribner, Oren's mother, won the award back in 2007 and he believes, she played a big part in helping him win it this year.

"In a way, it almost had to be," he said. "My mother volunteered a lot too, so as kids we just grew up watching her volunteer. I think that's why it's kind of easy for me and it's almost inbred I think."

Joanne Gregoire, the president of the Shauavon Chamber of Commerce, said she wasn't part of the selection committee that chose Scribner, but she understood their reasoning for picking him.

"Obviously it looks as though the volunteer spirit was born and bred into Oren," she said. "I believe there was something in his nomination that suggests it was his father, who had told him to give back to the community. I'm guessing that there is a very strong volunteer spirit in the Scribner family."

Scribner will be honoured at a gala banquet on May 10.