AUBURN — When it comes to awarding their Citizen of the Year, the Auburn Business Association prefers the ambush method.

Shock the recipient at the door and floor them with the news. So it was kind of alarming Thursday night when Gary Hemenway, this year’s winner, pulled up to the doors at Lost Valley Ski Area, dropped his wife off and drove away.

The buzz that followed was a nervous one.

“Did he leave?”

“Did he find a better party somewhere?”

“I think he went home.”

Fear not. Hemenway, owner of Payroll Management, was simply parking the car. Moments later, he came walking up the long parking lot, pushed the doors open and stepped inside.

Surprise, Mr. Hemenway. You’ve been ambushed.

“I can’t believe it,” someone said from the crowd around the doors. “He’s speechless.”

It was true. For a full minute or two. Hemenway said nothing. He smiled and shook hands. He hugged his wife, Elaine, and posed for photos. But for many long minutes, he could not speak. He was thunderstruck.

Just as the ABA likes them.

“Oh, he was surprised,” said Chip Morrison, president of the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce. “He’s shaking.”

Hemenway was shaking, all right. But the man didn’t come to own and operate one of the largest independent payroll services in the state by accident. Before long, he regained control of his faculties and snatched a mic out of somebody’s hand.

“Uh,” he said. “The only thing I can say is I’m a little surprised. OK, very much surprised. I have a few tears in my eyes.”

And so kicked off the 39th Annual Auburn Citizen of the Year ceremony, presented by those masters of stealth, the ABA. They’d managed to pull off their own version of shock and awe, but they didn’t do it alone. To keep Hemenway in the dark, they needed the help of his wife, who managed to keep the secret all the way to the end.

“There’s been so much stress in this,” she told a group of ABA members when the cat was finally out of the bag. “I’ve lied so much. I’ve told so many stories, and he believed them all.”

ABA President Peter Murphy said it was tricky keeping the Citizen of the Year under wraps all this time, but selecting the recipient was a no-brainer. The ABA membership was polled and when Hemenway’s name came up, they seized on it. He was the one. No doubt about it.

“He’s done so much,” Murphy said. “Just look at the handout.”

He had a point. In the ABA handout prepared for the night, a list of Hemenway’s contributions took up a full page. Some of the organizations he has supported were listed: The Great Falls Balloon Festival, Thorncrag Nature Sanctuary, Boys and Girls Club of Lewiston-Auburn, The Capital Building Fund for the Androscoggin County Chamber and the Boy Scouts of Maine.

Hemenway has also been a strong supporter of the Kora Shrine Burn Hospital and the Masonic Eye Foundation. In addition, he and Elaine served for five years as a host family for the Lewiston Maineiacs, welcoming junior hockey players into their home.

As the ABA said from the start: a no-brainer.

Hemenway was lauded from all directions. Auburn Mayor Jonathan P. LaBonte handed over a key to the city. At Lost Valley, the night was all about the newest Citizen of the Year.

And if he had his way, he’d hand it over to someone else.

“I’ve done so little,” he said. “My wife does it all, as most of you know. If anyone should be honored with this, it’s her.”

Then he gave his wife a big hug, a big kiss and smiled some more for the cameras.

The effects of the ambush, apparently, were starting to wear off.

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Auburn’s previous Citizens of the Year