Volunteers from across Keighley were honoured in this year’s Community Star awards. Big-hearted people from neighbourhoods, estates and villages won a host of awards. They ranged from community centre volunteers to church members and children to pensioners.

A Keighley News award, named after the sister title of the Telegraph & Argus, went to popular historian and Memory Lane writer Ian Dewhirst.

Winnie Barker was honoured for spending 74 years helping with her Sunday School in Silsden.

At the other end of the scale Kylie Croft and Safeer Ahmed won awards for organising activities for fellow young people in their neighbourhoods.

The awards – hosted by Bradford Council’s Keighley Area Committee – were presented in a ceremony by Malcolm Hoddy, editor of the Keighley News. Committee chairman Glen Miller said the awards recognised people who made a positive and significant impact on community life.

He said: “Our award winners seek no public recognition but their example provides a wider opportunity to showcase and value the contribution that they and many others like them make.”

The citation for Winnie Barker’s award said that having taught at Sunday School for 74 years, Winnie “exudes and encourages the values of sharing, caring, honesty and kindness” and is described as “a remarkable, selfless woman dedicated to making better the lives of others”.

Currently recovering following a knee replacement operation, she hopes to resume her voluntary work at Aireview Infant School. Keighley Special Olympians won the Community Star award for groups. The citation said it was an extraordinary group of people who contribute enormously to promoting a positive image of Keighley, they are a credit to the town and a collective example of sporting success.

With a 29-medal haul from the last games in Leicester in 2009, “they are an inspirational and motivated group of people and very much deserve this acknowledgement”.

Volunteers at the Manorlands hospice in Oxenhope near Keighley won the community star award for groups.

The citation said more than 100,000 people volunteer in hospices across the UK. Without them, hospices could not continue to do the work they do. Volunteer involvement is a significant aspect of the difference that hospices bring to the lives of patients and their families.