BROAD COVE - St. Mark's Anglican Church still has Leone Conrad's secretarial talents but her 50 years of bean-counting prowess has gone into retirement.

 "I think a change, after all, is good in any organization," Ms Conrad said in an interview from her home on The Lane road.

 The church did find someone to take on treasurer's duties but didn't let their lifelong parishioner leave the position without some recognition.

 Earlier this spring, church minister David Phillips made a plaque presentation to an astonished Ms Conrad in front of the congregation.

 "That was a big surprise. I had no idea," she said of the gesture. "I was very pleased with it."

 She had noticed earlier in the service that the pews were a little more full than usual.

 "You see, they all knew," she said with a laugh. "No one told me. It was quite a surprise."

 A reception at a nearby home followed where she was the subject of yet another presentation.

 Ms Conrad said her son Paul, who lives in Hebbville, will come place the plaque on a wall at her home. Her other son, Wayne, lives in Lower Sackville.

 So, why did Ms Conrad hang onto the treasurer's post for so long?

 "I guess, just like everything else, there was no one else to take it," she said, adding she never anticipated having that volunteer position for five decades.

 "I just thought [stay] a few years and that would be it but nobody would take it and I kept going and going and it ended up to 50 years."

 She laughed. "I mean, I'm not young anymore."

 She told this newspaper her age but that's a number the former treasurer doesn't want widely known.

 "Don't put that in the paper," she said with another chuckle.

 Ms Conrad has both attended and taught Sunday school in her lifetime and spent many years as president of the women's auxiliary and as a member of the altar guild.

 A church newsletter story called her "an all round strong pillar of the church."

posted on 06/24/08