Longtime Boardman Little League and Boardman Community Baseball volunteer Greg Krieger was named the Boardman Civic Association’s Citizen of the Year at the group’s quarterly dinner meeting held at the Larricia Family Community Center in Boardman Park on Monday night.
      Well-known local builder, Joseph Sylvester Jr., was named the BCA’s Business Person of the Year.
      Krieger graduated from Boardman High School in 1972 where he was three-year letterman baseball player for the Spartans, serving as captain of the team in his senior year.
      After graduating Ohio Northern University (where he played baseball) in 1977, he returned to his hometown and almost every summer since then he has been involved in youth baseball in Boardman. For years he and stablemate John Walsh were the groundskeepers for Boardman Little League at Boardman Park, where they would spend summer weekends readying the fields for play.
      When Boardman Little League and Boardman Youth Baseball merged and the Fields of Dreams were constructed, Krieger and Walsh took-up their familiar duties at the new complex, and Krieger remains a fixture in the organization to this day.
      He served as president of BCB from 1994-1996, and currently serves the organization as secretary and director of operations. The Fields of Dreams is one of the largest youth baseball complexes east of the Mississippi River.
      Sylvester currently manages the construction company founded by his father some 56 years ago that still bears the family name, The Joseph Sylvester Construction Co.
      Located on West Blvd., the company has built more than 100 commercial buildings in Boardman Township, and also manages several planned unit developments here that it designed and built.
      Sylvester Construction has also donated its services to a host of civic and community projects in the township, including the Fields of Dreams, Kids Town in Boardman Park, and an outdoor drive-under canopy at St. Charles Church.