Chamber taps Wade, Hill, others for annual awards

Becky Brooks — Staff

The Gibbs fam­ily accepts the Cor­po­rate Cit­i­zen of the Year Award

By Becky Brooks

Man­ag­ing Editor

news@gazettepublishingco.com

The Belle­vue Cham­ber of Com­merce held its annual meet­ing and awards ban­quet Sat­ur­day night with nearly 65 peo­ple in attendance.

The event was held at the Belle­vue Soci­ety of the Arts.

David Frey­tag pre­sented the Com­mer­cial Award com­ment­ing about the win­ner, “He puts his heart and soul into every­thing he does.”

Wilbur Wade was pre­sented the award. Wade, who admit­ted to being some­what ill that evening, spoke from the front of the room.

“Four years ago I came to this town and I knew one per­son,” he said. He also talked about the projects he has got­ten involved with includ­ing the Com­mit­tee to Grow Bellevue.

“I really feel Belle­vue is here,” Wade stated. “I think it’s going to explode. I feel there are good things on the horizon.”

The Com­mu­nity Enhance­ment Award was pre­sented by Pas­tor Bruce Kent to Touch The Heart Youth Min­istries. One of the recip­i­ents for the group award, Marv Mey­ers, told the audi­ence that the min­istry was started in the Belle­vue City Schools.

He com­mented that the Touch The Heart Youth Min­istries really began in 2003 when he was afraid the work started ear­lier would actu­ally end after his retire­ment from the schools.

Oth­ers pointed out that with the land donated by the Jim and Nancy Shel­ley to the orga­ni­za­tion, the min­istry began a fish­ing ministry.

A mem­ber of the group, Doug Gilden­meis­ter, said the prop­erty now has a shel­ter­house, bas­ket­ball court, and vol­ley­ball court.

Attend­ing and accept­ing the Com­mu­nity Enhance­ment Award were: Rev. John and Jodi Ginty, Rev. Bruce Kent, Marv and Shirley Mey­ers, Larry and Marg Rec­tor, Doug and Sue Gilden­meis­ter, Revs Ron and Rita Smith, Mr.and Mrs. Michael Becks, and Trina Donnersbach.

Tom Barth pre­sented the Cor­po­rate Cit­i­zen of the Year Award to Gibbs Equip­ment with Gor­don and Kathy Gibbs plus Mike and Michelle Gibbs accept­ing the honor.

Barth shared that in 1970, Gor­don Gibbs pur­chased the Belle­vue Imple­ment Com­pany and in 1975 changed the name to Gibbs Equip­ment. Today Michael Gibbs is pres­i­dent and Gor­don Gibbs is the CEO. The busi­ness today has 20 employees.

“The deal­er­ship has sur­vived and grown while oth­ers have closed up,” Barth pointed out.

Gor­don Gibbs thanked the cham­ber for the award. “I am not sure longevity has much to do with suc­cess,” he com­mented in front of the cham­ber mem­bers, “but peo­ple do. We have great people.”

The next award was pre­sented by Sylvia Sack­ett. The Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice Award was given to Thank­ful Hearts, which was rep­re­sented by LaRose Mead­ows, Jane Bai­ley, and Carol Schubert.

The women were listed as the orga­niz­ing trio for the min­istry that pro­vides com­mu­nity meals twice a month. The women pointed out that the orga­ni­za­tion has 23 busi­nesses, church groups and fam­i­lies already com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing meals to the com­mu­nity for the entire 2012 year.

The Cit­i­zen of the Year Award was pre­sented to retired, long-time teacher Sharon Hill, who now vol­un­teers for the Sal­va­tion Army.

Pre­sen­ter Jane Bai­ley reported that Hill had taken on the Belle­vue Ket­tle Cam­paign in 2010.

Hill accepted the award on behalf of the whole local Sal­va­tion Army group.

“I taught 30 years in Fam­ily and Con­sumer Sci­ence Pro­gram,” she said, not­ing most of those years were at Belle­vue High School.

Hill pointed out that part of that pro­gram was teach­ing youths to be involved in com­mu­nity ser­vice so it was not much of a stretch for her to work for the Sal­va­tion Army after she retired.

“I told them I don’t do this for recog­ni­tion,” she stated.

Ear­lier in the evening, Cham­ber Pres­i­dent Bon­nie Bell intro­duced the awards com­mit­tee and past award win­ners at the dinner.

She also pre­sented the Retir­ing Direc­tor Award to Ken Dendinger, of Dendinger Broth­ers. He served from 2006 to 2011.

Posted by Becky Brooks on Mar 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.