ELKINS — The Elkins-Randolph County Chamber of Commerce will host its annual Dinner & Awards Night next week.

Presented by Vandalia Health Davis Medical Center, the dinner will be Thursday, March 19 at Davis & Elkins College’s Myles Center for the Arts.

The social hour will start at 5:30 p.m., with the awards ceremony beginning at 6:15 p.m.

Chamber partners, members and community supporters are all invited to attend and “celebrate accomplishments, reflect on the past year and look ahead together.”

“This special night honors the businesses, organizations and individuals who help make Randolph County thrive,” the ERCCC’s website states. “Enjoy a formal dinner, meaningful connections and the presentation of Chamber awards recognizing excellence, leadership and service in our community.”

Tickets can be purchased online or by scanning the QR code on the event’s official flyer on the ERCCC website. One ticket includes admission to the annual Awards Dinner, one complimentary drink per guest and a buffet-style dinner featuring flank steak and chicken marengo.

This year’s annual Awards Dinner will not have a guest speaker because, as ERCCC Executive Director Karrah Washington explained, the Chamber wanted the dinner to be more of a celebration of the award recipients.

“So we changed our annual awards up a little bit… we have refrained from inviting a guest speaker and hope that the awards are more prestigious,” Washington told The Inter-Mountain.

“The Chamber will hold true to bringing educational and motivational speakers to the community as we did; however, this year we just wanted it to be more of a celebration of the recipients.”

Awards up for grabs this year include Nonprofit Organization of the Year, Community Art Award, Young Leader of the Year, Business Person(s) of the Year, Business of the Year, New Business of the Year, Citizen of the Year and the Tom Williams Award of Distinction.

“We’re very excited. The nominating committee has met and the recipients have been selected,” Washington said. “I will say that (the committee) definitely had a hard decision to make as there were numerous individuals and/or businesses who are certainly deserving, so they had their work cut out for them in terms of picking the recipients.”

At last year’s Annual Awards Dinner, the Non-Profit of the Year Award went to Randolph County CLIMB, the Community Art Award went to ArtsBank and West Virginia University Extension Agent Hannah Fincham received the Young Leader of the Year Award.

Colin McFadden and Heidi Storrick McFadden, owners of Trickett Hardware, were named the Business Persons of the Year at last year’s ceremony.

Nikki Rogers State Farm was honored as the Business of the Year and Clementine’s Cantina was honored as the New Business of the Year.

Also during last year’s event, Jessica Sutton was named the Citizen of the Year, Michael Hayes was honored as the Chamber Member of the Year, and the Tom Williams Award of Distinction was presented to Mike Bell.

For more information, contact the Elkins-Randolph County Chamber of Commerce at executivedirector@erccc.com or call 304-636-2717.