Friday night, February 19th, 2010 the Panama City Beach Chamber of Commerce held its “Salute to the Stars” annual Awards Banquet at the Edgewater Beach and Golf Resort Conference center. The turn out was amazing! Enthusiasm was running high and you could tell there was a great sense of hopeful anticipation in regard to the opening of the new airport.
The evening began with the Navy Honor Guard followed by an innvocation. Then Sharon Carroll sang the National Anthem. Boy she sounded great and she even knocked it out of the park with a sore throat! What a professional! Then Paris Janos of WJHG spoke and led us through what was to come throughout the evening. As the night progressed I tried to keep up with our Twitter stream (twitter.com/pcbdaily) but events were moving faster than we could tweet.
Beth Oltman (President & CEO) spoke briefly as did Philip Griffitts, Jr. (Grif) of Sugar Sands Motel, the current Chairman of the Beaches Chamber.
The program progressed quickly with the following awards for 2009 being given:
Joe Tannehill, The Pioneer of the Year Award (he gave an up to the minute report on when the first flight would occur at the new airport).
Lisa Adams of Thrive Partnership: The Small Business Person of the Year award
Charles Heyman: The Jean L. Shafer Ambassador of the Year
Anthony DeBose: The Outgoing Chairman Award
Tom Neubauer: The Humanitarian Award.
Bertie Reynolds: Lifetime Achievement Award (who until last year was with the chamber since it became the chamber in 1987)
After the awards portion of the banquet, dinner was served. The food was excellent and the guests that happened to be at our table were great to talk with over dinner. Music was provided by”Jones and Company” and the dance floor had more than few people enjoying themselves.
We have included a few pictures below to give you and idea of what it was like at this years Panama City Beach Chamber of Commerce Award Banquet.
PCBDaily 