A Palm Beach police detective, a well-known town resident, and a pool deck supervisor at a local club are the recipients of this year’s Raymond J. Kunkel Awards for heroic or meritorious service to the local community.
The 2025 Kunkel honorees – Detective Giselle Bido, Minnie Pulitzer and Robert Young – were announced at the Palm Beach Civic Association’s Annual Meeting Monday at the Flagler Museum. More than 250 people attended.
The Kunkel recipients are selected by the Civic Association’s six-member Raymond J. Kunkel Award Committee, represented at Monday’s meeting by Committee Chairman William Matthews and Committee member Michael Reiter. Reiter has been a Civic Association director since 2013.
The Kunkel Award was established in memory of the former Civic Association chairman whose name it bears. From 1978 through this year, the Civic Association honored more than 130 individuals and organizations with the award.
Giselle Bido
Detective Bido’s investigation into a sexual battery led to the offender’s arrest. But Bido didn’t stop there, Reiter said. The assistance she provided to previous victims of the offender allowed their voices to be heard in court, which helped make an impact on the judge’s ruling.
The Palm Beach Police Department nominated Bido, a 12-year veteran of the force, for the Kunkel Award based on her “superb” investigative work, according to Police Chief Nicholas Caristo.
The department was contacted in November by a woman who was choked and sexually assaulted by a yacht captain at a hotel. During her investigation, Bido learned that the suspect had been arrested multiple times over a period of years for charges that included domestic battery and extortion, Reiter said.
The captain was scheduled to sail to the Caribbean within the upcoming week. “Bido sought and was granted an emergency warrant for his arrest for sexual battery, and he was taken into custody,” Reiter said.
Through a YouTube channel that focused on international yachting news, she spread news of the offender’s recent arrest and asked anyone with information about him to come forward.
“And come forward, they did,” Reiter said. “Bido was contacted by multiple victims who shared their stories involving the offender from 2019-22. Bido presented her findings to a judge who granted the prosecution’s motion for pretrial detention.”
“Detective Bido had no obligation to reach out to these former victims, all of whom were outside of her jurisdiction,” Caristo wrote in support of Bido’s nomination for the Kunkel Award. “Her desire to listen to their stories and pass on their accounts in this case ensured the judge knew the character of the man she had arrested.”
This is the second Kunkel for Bido, who received the award in 2020 for helping to save a suicidal subject.
Minnie Pulitzer
Minnie Pulitzer, a Palm Beach resident and daughter of the late fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer, put her own life at risk when she charged into the ocean and rescued a drowning surfer from turbulent surf,” Reiter said.
Pulitzer and her sister Liza Pulitzer were strolling on the beach during the morning of January 23 when they noticed the surfer yelling for help. It was a windy morning and there was a large and continuous incoming wave swell along the shore within the 1100 block of North Ocean Boulevard, where the Pulitzer sisters were walking.
Two surfers were in the ocean, at a great distance from one another. One had lost their surfboard, which the Pulitzers noticed had washed ashore. The sisters then realized that one of the surfers was yelling for help while struggling to stay afloat, Reiter said.
Without hesitation, Minnie Pulitzer grabbed the surfboard and entered the ocean to aid the drowning surfer, according to Chief Caristo, whose department nominated Pulitzer for the Kunkel honor.
“Large breaking waves ripped the surfboard from Pulitzer’s grip and returned it to the beach,” Reiter said. “But she continued pushing through the waves until she reached the beleaguered surfer. She swam the two of them toward the shore even as they were continually pushed underwater.”
As they moved closer to shore, Liza Pulitzer entered the ocean and helped them onto the beach.
Palm Beach Fire-Rescue transported the surfer to a local hospital. The victim was released later that night.
“There is no question that the selfless actions of Minnie Pulitzer saved the life of a drowning surfer that day,” Caristo wrote.
Robert Young
Robert Young is a pool deck supervisor at The Beach Club, where he saved the life of a choking victim.
On November 20, Young noticed a lifeguard striking a club member on the back as she was choking while dining on the club’s pool deck.
Young advised the lifeguard to call for help and immediately administered the Heimlich maneuver on the woman until he dislodged the food, and she was able to breathe, Reiter said.
Beach Club General Manager Robert Morris nominated Young for the Kunkel Award. “Paramedics arrived and thanked Robert for his life-saving actions,” Morris wrote of the incident.
In a letter to the Kunkel Committee, Loy Anderson wrote that Robert Young’s calm and decisive action saved the life of his mother, Inger Anderson.
“My family and I are profoundly grateful, not just for Robert’s quick thinking, but for the humility and grace with which he handled the situation,” Loy Anderson wrote. “He never sought attention or recognition.”
The incident marked the second time when Young saved the life of a choking club member by performing the Heimlich maneuver, according to Anderson and Beach Club member Carol Hickman.
Young has held various positions during his 39 years of employment at The Beach Club. Throughout them all, he has exemplified great character, integrity and honesty, according to Morris.
“He genuinely cares about the members and employees and continues to assist whenever needed,” Morris said.
In addition to the Kunkel Awards, highlights included Mayor Danielle Moore’s annual state of the town presentation and approval of four new Civic Association directors for 2025 – Wendy Bingham Cox, Paul Efron, John Olson and Ronald Rosenfeld.
The Annual Meeting was sponsored Palm Beach Island Hospice Foundation. The mailing for the program was underwritten by Linda Olsson, a member of the Civic Association’s Executive Committee and a director since 2014.
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