In addition to countless hours volunteering at Adirondack Medical Center for the last 37 years, Virginia Bristol, a 13-year cancer survivor, has formed a survivor support group. (Photo provided)

RAINBOW LAKE — Virigina Bristol’s daughter, Noreen Oslander, called her mother Tuesday evening to tell her she had been chosen as Volunteer of the Year. Bristol didn’t even know her daughter had nominated her. “It was a shock when she called,” Bristol, 91, said in an interview at her Rainbow Lake home. Bristol was chosen not for anything she did in 2009 — she has been unable to volunteer as she is recovering from a late 2008 stroke — but for everything she has done over the past 60 years, from serving as an air raid warden during World War II in her native Irvington to her work for countless organizations in the Saranac Lake area, where she has lived since 1949. “I volunteer because I like it,” Bristol said. “I’ve enjoyed it all these years.” Bristol’s longest-running volunteering effort was for the hospital, starting 37 years ago when it was Saranac Lake General Hospital and continuing with Adirondack Medical Center.