The Port Orchard Chamber of Commerce presented its 2010 Man and Woman of the Year awards to a woman known to millions and a man who flies under the radar everywhere but in South Kitsap.

Since 1963, the Port Orchard Chamber of Commerce has honored 74 men and women with the award, and this year’s recipients are Dick Davis and Delilah Rene.

Davis is best known for efforts to annex McCormick Woods into the city of Port Orchard.

“That was the most significant event, and probably the one that has the biggest impact on the community,” he said.

Davis thinks the annexation was essential since it increased the city’s population size, and the new people who were added increased the city’s diversity.

“Many come from other parts of the country and other parts of the world,” he said. “They bring a new flavor to the city, I believe.”

Besides working on the McCormick Woods annexation, Davis has volunteered with the South Kitsap School District on numerous committees.

“We think of him highly,” said Aimee Warthen, community relations director with the South Kitsap School District. “I’m not surprised that he got the award. He deserved it.”

Davis didn’t expect it, though.

“It was kind of an exciting surprise,” he said. “It’s very nice to be in the company of some of the other people who won the war. it’s kind of rarafied territory.”

Delilah Rene won the 2010 South Kitsap Woman of the Year Award.

According to a press release, Delilah’s syndicated night-time love songs radio show makes her the most-listened-to-woman on radio in North America.

In her spare time, she operates several businesses in downtown Port Orchard, including Delilah’s Cozy Kitchin, the Port Orchard Pavilion, Wooden You Love It and a women’s botique.

Craig Kitchin, Rene’s business partner at Delilah’s Cozy Kitchin said Rene loves Port Orchard and shows it by pouring her time, work and resources into projects around the town.

“Delilah has, this year as an example, taken a hillside in downtown on Bay Street and planted a hillside garden using her own time, energy and resources,” he said, “and asked others to help her in that process.

“It’s those types of opportunities she uses to participate in the community,” Kitchin said, “and encourages family and friends to do that alongside of her.”

Delilah also takes a hands-on approach to her businesses, said Sean Reilly general manager at Delilah’s Cozy Kitchin.

“She was the one who physically decorated this,” he said. “She’s very involved.

Jan Haynes, who has known Rene since college, said she’s the same person on the radio as off it.

“I’ve heard people say that she can’t be real because she sounds too good to be true, but it really is her,” she said. “When you talk to her in person, she’s even larger in life.”

Rene is a single mother to eight adopted and four biological children, and she has established a foundation called Point Hope which focuses on helping refugee children in Ghana and on special needs children in the United States foster care system.

“She wants to help others, and that’s what she goes about day to day,” said Haynes.