8 Was Enough to Win ’98 Family Award

With nominations due today for Cypress Family of the Year 1999, some residents might be wondering what it takes to receive such an honor.

Last year’s winners, Kurt and Nancy Weaver, still aren’t exactly sure.

“We didn’t do anything special,” says Nancy, 55. “The community is right, our beliefs are right for us, and we were able to raise a successful family.”

It’s a combination of strong moral conviction and humility that led to the Weavers being named Cypress Family of the Year 1998, according to the selection committee.

“We’re looking for the All-American families where the kids love each other and ask their parents for advice,” said Joan Edwards, a member of the selection committee. “Nancy and Kurt really know the parenting business.”

The idea, she said, is to find a family that can be a role model--”to say these kinds of families do exist; and if they can do it, we can do it.”

Shonna Weaver, 29, now a social worker at a convalescent home in Buena Park, said that the family home was “the hangout for all the kids” in the neighborhood.

It was one of those kids, Joshua Crawford, who nominated the Weaver family for the honor. A friend of Weaver twins Trent and Travis, the 21-year-old became close to the family.

The Weaver home is oddly quiet now: Taressa, 30, Bond, 29, and Colby, 26, are married and living in Northern California and Utah; Tyson, 25, is engaged and attending Cypress Community College; Travis, 20, is on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Florida; Trent, 20, is on a church mission in Pennsylvania, and Lyndsay, 18, is in college in Arizona.

Still, the family remains close and tries to take vacations together. The family is gathering this weekend in Las Vegas, for instance, to attend a Brigham Young University basketball game.

Kurt, 56, a national sales representative for the Boy Scouts of America, and Nancy, a homemaker and part-time instructional aide at Lexington Junior High, say they always tried to put their children’s lives before their careers.

“There is no success in a person’s career that compensates for failure in the family,” Kurt said.

Nomination forms for Family of the Year are available at the Cypress Community Center. Information: (714) 229-6780.

Chris Ceballos can be reached at (714) 966-7440