Awards Night..And The Winner Is:

Last night Jack and I attended the Chamber of Commerce awards night. Usually around this time of year they have the small business of the year award breakfast. They decided this year they would expand this to include awards in 8 different categories such as retail, health and social services, small business, large business, security, education..just to name a few. Taking it from a breakfast to a dinner was a big difference and a big challenge. The night turned out great. The food was wonderful and the speeches were short. The response from the community was great, they had about 340 people there..100 more than they had at first anticipated. Jack usually is in charge of the small business awards and this year was no exception. He had to say a little speech and hand out the awards..like the academy awards only with no wardrobe malfunctions...dang it! The keynote speaker was a wonderful, inspiring woman named Dr. Lucille Ford. She is almost 90! But you would never guess it from listening to her speak. I have had the privilege a few times and always enjoy her wisdom, her sense of humor and her intelligence..I want to grow up to be her some day...I would have to live to be 200 in order to accomplish all that she has. I wish my pic of her had turned out but it was too dark to get a good shot when she was speaking. I should have taken one during dinner since we sat together but I was a bit shy to whip out my camera...surprising I know since I have no qualms about shooting pics of my hubby in surgery! When we entered into the Convo Center this landscape decor was set to symbolize the main thought for the night. If you can see it, the center has a willow tree. A willow sends out big, strong roots and that can help keep soil from eroding and it was likened to a community of businesses and organizations that reach out to keep a community strong. Our Ashland community has been blessed with many small and larger business throughout the years and small business especially has become almost a backbone of small towns like ours. It is easy to see how the large employers of our town help us, but we forget sometimes about the little guys that may only employ 25-100 people. There are many more of those than people really know about. So events like this that give focus to that is such a nice thing to have happen.
Hi Jack! All around the room the finalists for the Chamber of Commerce awards had tables set up with hand outs and information about their organization. This was display was from the police force. Now Jack, you must admit that this picture is much nicer than the hospital ones that I took a few weeks ago.
Ashland University has a wonderful event area in the Convocation Center. It's used for many things throughout the year...weddings, any AU events and many things from our community. I thought they did a great job in decorating for tonight's award celebration.
The tables all looked very Spring like. I thought the centerpieces were very nice.
Here's a nice blurry shot of Jack up at the podium waiting to give out awards to businesses and other organizations. My little point and shoot just didn't have the "umph" to take a nice clear shot at a distance.
Hmmm..now how did that get to my house? I guess it pays to know a big wig at an awards event. I love a freebie!