Aberdeen Marsh-Ozga, a Riverside village trustee, described her 17 years of involvement with the village as a natural consequence of her family’s relocation.
“I think people become involved in Riverside organically when they arrive here. My husband and I bought a historic home in 2001, and because it was a landmark, I had, on a couple of occasions, needed to go before the village’s preservation commission to get various projects that impacted the exterior vetted and approved,” she told the Landmark. “After doing this a few times, I thought, ‘I could really lend some expertise at this point,’ after having been through a few projects.”
Joining the preservation group around 2008 — and staying a member “in excess of 13 years,” she said — caused a butterfly effect that led to her being named the village’s Person of the Year for 2025.
Marsh-Ozga graduated from the preservation commission and became a village trustee in 2021.
“Having built up a level of expertise in a variety of fields, ranging from preservation to tourism and a general familiarity with how infrastructure projects in the village worked through my experience on the preservation commission, all of those things together, and having done them for so many years, made it a natural fit,” she said. “I’ve always been very engaged with community. I really look forward to every opportunity I have to sit down and talk to people.”
For the past couple of years, she’s been a co-chair of Riverside’s ad-hoc sesquicentennial planning commission alongside Trustee Alex Gallegos, leading the charge to plan the village’s celebrations for its 150th anniversary this year.
“I think Riverside is incredibly special. It was designed by Olmsted. It’s a National Historic Landmark. It is filled with amazing architecture and natural resources and wonderful people, and it, in my mind, had not been celebrated nearly enough,” she said. “It’s truly uniquely special, and I felt like 150 years of not just surviving but thriving is really worth celebrating, and it’s worth celebrating widely and as long as possible.”
Together with a temporary assembly of volunteers, Marsh-Ozga and Gallegos planned a range of events and activities, including the sale of old street signs, an opening ceremony in January and a Homecoming Weekend in August. A closing ceremony is scheduled for Feb. 20, 2026, she said.
The year’s celebrations included the creation of two original musical compositions by staff at Riverside School District 96 and the Bends in the River one-act play festival. There was also the burial of a time capsule this month that is scheduled to be opened 75 years from now in 2100.
“Everyone who submitted content for the time capsule is going to receive a certificate that they can keep with their family mementos throughout the years, just so that they can remember that, in 2100, you might want to come to Riverside when they open the time capsule,” she said. “I am nothing if not a long-term planner.”
At the celebratory dinner in September where she was recognized, Marsh-Ozga said she was touched by the presence of multiple past winners, speeches made by Gallegos and her friend Jen Pacourek, and the unexpected attendance of former Village President Joe Ballerine, who resigned from his position in September 2023 to move out of state.
“He walked in, and you could have knocked me over with a feather,” she said. “It was incredible.”
Looking ahead to 2026, Marsh-Ozga said she has her eyes set on implementing items from Riverside’s climate action and resilience plan as quickly as possible, especially those that have “little to no cost.” She also hopes to engage the public as the board works toward approving a new public safety facility that will include community spaces.
“Those are conversations that are going to be really interesting and important. We’re having Williams architects draw up some preliminary plans that can be shared and workshopped, and we would like as many people to weigh in on that as possible,” she said. It’s going to be a space for all of us, for all of Riverside, for the future, and it’s really something that is long overdue in terms of our public safety needs.”
Overall, she said she’s thankful for the strong community Riverside has developed.
“I would just like to thank everybody for being here,” she said. “Sometimes, on the spot, it’s hard to put all those sentiments into words, but it’s easy to be inspired by your surroundings and your neighbors in a community like Riverside.”
Correction, Jan. 2, 2026, 11:45 a.m.: A previous version of this article misstated that Marsh-Ozga was named Person of the Year for the Lions Club rather than Riverside as a whole. The title and body have been updated to reflect the correct information. The Landmark regrets the error.
