Together they are the Bunyards, one of the most noticeable couples in Saratoga. And it's been a busy year for them.

Until early November of this year, their calendar was crowded with appointments and meetings. Marge is very active in the League of Women Voters, and George regularly helps her with election-related matters.

It is only now that they have some respite. Or maybe not. Knowing the Bunyards, they might have already taken on some more responsibility or volunteer work.

But their post-election daily schedule is certainly a little less hectic, a little less maniacal.

In the months leading to the election, Marge helped organize several candidate forum meetings in Saratoga and neighboring cities. When she was not explaining the finer points of some local ballot measure to local citizens, she could be seen describing the election website that the League was promoting.

A week before the November election, the Bunyards' home was a maelstrom of activity. Huge, unopened boxes sat in a corner. In the garage, electronic voting machines were being readied for the big day on Nov. 2. Not only are the Bunyards active in the League of Women Voters, they had also managed to get their house certified as a registered voting booth.

"The League is very big in my life," said Marge, who joined the league in the 1950s not long after completing graduate school. She remembers riding a bicycle and going to various neighborhoods to tell people more about the League.

"Once I put all my kids in a wagon and went door to door," recalls Marge.

The Bunyards moved to Saratoga in 1971. But they had been part of the League while living in Nashville, and then in Livermore. As George supported the family, Marge became more and more active in the community. Besides her work with the League, she was also active in the American Association of University Women.

When her children joined local schools, Marge was elected to the Los Gatos­Saratoga Joint Union High School District board.

The husband and wife team of Marty and Joe Clevenger have known them for more than two decades.

"Our kids were roughly the same age," said Joe. With George, he got involved in the issues that they were interested in--the problems of transportation in the state or the feasibility of a light rail project in the area.

"We worked together on various issues. Marge manages to get along with people, even people who disagree with her," adds Marty Clevenger, a former mayor of Saratoga.

"She is a tireless worker and she gets involved in a lot of good causes," said Marty. "She's a good soldier. She doesn't have to be the leader of something she's involved in."

She said that Marge is a wonderful role model. "I often think, 'How would Marge have handled the situation?' "

The just concluded election season saw the Bunyards handling a variety of situations.

Marge said that sometimes she put in more than 30 hours a week. "We had to find the places where meetings could to organized," she said. "We had to draw up a list of candidates we had to serve."

The Bunyards say that they spent a lot of time explaining the pros and cons of various voting measures. "We have different events to educate the public. We do not take sides, and we do not endorse candidates," said Marge.

At the Building Bridges event held in Saratoga in October, Marge could be seen talking about the voting machines to anyone who stopped at the League of Women Voters booth.

"We had a demonstration of the voting machines so that voters could familiarize themselves with the machines."

George, true to character, was also on one of the committees for Building Bridges, an event first started two years ago in an attempt to integrate the various ethnic groups in and around Saratoga.

"He chaired the committee that handled all the organization and clubs," said Fred Armstrong, one of the main organizers.

"He is a real humanist; he is concerned with mankind," adds Armstrong. "Years ago he also chaired a theater group called the Valley Institute of Theater Arts. He is also a Ph.D. in physics and started his own company."

Both George and Marge say that they were energized by the recent local elections. "I'm happy to see more people running," Marge said. "Some years, especially on the school board, there are not enough people running and people get in automatically.

"More people running is good for spirited contests. The public can discuss the issues. Even though our forums are not well attended, residents can always watch the debates on the local TV stations."

Behind all this effort lies Marge's desire to get more people to vote.

George feels that city politics in recent years have taken a turn for the better.

"I remember a great split in the city in the 1980s," he said. "That was an unfortunate time. Some of the campaigns that ran at the time were outrageous." He said that more discussion might have led to more level-headedness now.

In those years, according to George, Saratoga had built up quite a reputation, too. Some outsiders thought that it was a "keep out of my way, not my backyard" kind of city.

"I would occasionally meet businessmen who would laugh at me when I told them that I was from Saratoga." George remembers defending the reputation of the city.

The Bunyards have been active in investing in the future of the city, too. Both are part of a program called the Oak Street Buddies where they volunteer time twice a week to read to a child.

"You can see their confidence building up as they also learn to read," said Marge.

Helen Lemmon, president of the Saratoga Lions Club, has known the Bunyards--both members of the Lions Club--for more than 20 years. "I remember Marge from the time when she joined the Los Gatos­Saratoga chapter of the American Association of University Women. She became president within three years of joining."

Lemmon said that Marge is a very easy person to work with. "She is interested in the community thinking ahead. She takes on the demanding tasks and does them well. I know that if she said yes to something, I can count on her."

She said that George, a former president of the Lions Club, had recently started a Sunshine Committee to get more members to attend club meetings.

"The effort is to keep in touch with our members. The committee has helped increase the attendance at our luncheons," she said. "I think we are fortunate to have the Bunyards with us."

The Bunyards feel fortunate, too. They have helped the community in every possible way they can.

An erudite couple, they are part of a Japanese book discussion group. Marge has also helped at a women's resource center in Palo Alto. George is active in the California Energy Commission.

The Bunyards said that the divisiveness of the presidential election left them exhausted. "It was one of the most divisive elections ever," said George. At the Building Bridges event, he had talked about building a few bridges to heal the great divide in this country.

Everyone who has come in touch with the Bunyards talk about their warmth, their friendliness and their support.

Barbara Mendenhall, a friend of the Saratoga couple, has a simple way of describing Marge: "She bubbles."

As for the Bunyards' involvement in the community, Mendenhall said, "Their energy just amazes me."