Chamber Gala to honor Youngstown’s
Margery Stratton

Stratton honored for community involvement

Lewiston Porter Sentinel, April 9, 2005
by Sandy Hays-Mies
Lower Niagara Region Chamber of Commerce

Editor’s Note: As the days approach for the Lower Niagara River Region Chamber of Commerce Gala, Saturday, June 4 at the Niagara Falls Country Club, the Chamber presents its profiles of the 2005 honorees. In today’s Sentinel, we take a look at Margery Stratton, recipient of the 2005 Youngstown Business and Professional Association’s Business Person of the Year honor.

The Youngstown Business and Professional Association has named Margery Stratton, owner of Dan and Lucy Wilson Realty, as their 2005 Business Person of the Year Award. Her story began in Bucks County, Pa. where she was born and raised. She attended Wilson College where she met and eventually married landscape architect, Wendell Stratton. In 1947, when Wendell landed a job with the Niagara Frontier State Parks Department, the couple settled on Grand Island. Marge and Wendell wanted to raise their children in a big house in the country. In 1961, they contacted Lucy Wilson of Dan and Lucy Wilson Realty and found a house in Youngstown, just perfect enough to raise their six children. Once the children were all in school, she applied for a job at Dan and Lucy Wilson Realty. In 1966, she started as an agent and 23 years later in 1989, the lady who first sold her Youngstown home, also later sold Marge the company.
		Margery Stratton, recipient of the 2005 Youngstown Business Person of the Year honor, proudly stands outside of Dan and Lucy Wilson Realty Inc. on Lockport Street in the Village Youngstown.

Immersed in Community

Marge so fully integrated herself into the community that folks “from around these parts” just assume she has lived here her whole life. Her interests and community service are very broad based. She is a deacon of the First Presbyterian Church of Youngstown, and a member of their choir.

An avid reader, Marge is the chair of the Youngstown Library Book Club and a member of the Youngstown Study Group. She is a member of the Youngstown Historical Society board of directors.

She is also strong supporter and has actively served in many business organizations, including the Greater Lewiston Business and Professional Association. Marge is a longtime member of the Youngstown Business and Professional Association, a member of the Niagara USA Chamber of Commerce, a member of our Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Town of Porter Grievance Review Board. She supports the Youngstown Yacht Club, the Old Fort Niagara Association and served as president of the Niagara Frontier Association of Realtors. She is also a member of the Buffalo Board of Realtors and the list goes on.

Somewhere in between all of this, she also found time to co-author the Youngstown newsletter.

In the fall of 2004, she was honored in Porter as the 2004 Republican of the Year.

‘Like family’

Dan and Lucy Wilson Realty maintains three brokers and a secretary. Marge has found her career very rewarding. She loves watching clients buy a house that no one else wanted and then watching them make it their own. She calls her competitors in the field, her greatest support network and noted hat she turns to them often for advice. Some of her clients have become her life-long friends, “almost like family really,” she says.

Through all of her personal and professional associations, she has earned the reputation of being a “can do” person. Marge just doesn’t hand over ideas for someone else to implement, she works alongside others to get the job done. She is highly respected in her profession and as a community leader. The YBPA is proud to bestow this prestigious award on Marge, a friend and an exemplary businesswoman.