Chamber banquet hits right notes

The annual Clarendon Chamber of Commerce Awards Banquet was a resounding success March 31; and if you weren’t there, you missed quite a party fitting of The Roaring 20s theme.

From the speak easy to the silent auction to the jazz / big band music of “Sticks & Tones,” the whole affair at the Bairfield Activity Center was the bee’s knees or possibly even the cat’s pajamas! Chamber officials had set the scene just right, decorating the place like it was something straight out of The Great Gatsby. The partygoers did not disappoint, getting into the spirit with appropriate attire. Daddys came in with their flappers all decked out in their glad rags. Former Howardwick mayor Greta Byars probably had the most authentic outfit – a lovely green dress that her mother wore back in the 1920s.

As usual, the table decorations were a point of conversation. MC Dusty Green and his wife gave honorable mention to the Enterprise table, decorated with 1920s front pages with Chamber-related headlines, but the Best Dressed Table was hands down the Saints’ Roost Museum with its authentic collection of 1920s hats. History, after all, is what the Museum is all about.
Despite all the glitz and glamour, the real stars of the show were the award winners – the men and women who were duly recognized for the outstanding service they have rendered to our community. Two big news stories from the last year loomed large in the honors presented – the construction of the Clarendon Aquatic Center and COVID-19.

There is no understating the impact the pandemic had on our community and the world. The Chamber banquet was canceled in 2021 because of the virus, and the most recent Omicron variant of the virus delayed this year’s banquet by more than a month.

Green opened the banquet by reading a breaking news item from the Enterprise’s Facebook page dated March 31, 2020, and noting that it was two years ago to the day that the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Donley County. “What a two years it’s been,” he said.

A lot can be said about the pandemic. In many ways, it highlighted some of the great shortfalls of humanity – rampant ignorance, apathy, and rudeness. But above all that, other people rose to the occasion to help their fellow man and woman, to care for those who were sick, and to spread facts that would help keep people safe and healthy. And to that end, it was no surprise that the Clarendon Family Medical Center would be named the Business of the Year.

Donley County was a statistical anomaly within a month of that March 31, 2020, headline, reporting more positive cases of the virus per capita than most of the state and indeed the US. Our community wasn’t really any more sick than other places; it was a simple matter of Dr. John Howard and the Clarendon Family Medical Center being very aggressive with testing for the disease with other communities were not. That pro-active approach was also seen as the clinic began researching and treating COVID-19 patients with great vigor. Our local clinic soon gained a reputation and drew many patients from the surrounding area for treatment. Not counting those from out of town, the clinic treated more than 900 local patients who tested positive for COVID-19.

In accepting the Business of the Year Award, Dr. Howard – a man perfectly positioned in this crisis as our county judge and local doctor – gave credit not only to his employees but also to the people of Donley County, who supported the clinic’s mission with donations of money, food, medicine, and more to help those suffering from the disease.

While Judge / Dr. Howard fought the pandemic on the medical and the governmental fronts, back at the clinic the ladies who would be named the Women of the Year were busier than they had ever been. Nurse Practitioner Kathryn Broussard and Physician’s Assistant Devah Pittman each saw about 1,000 more patients than they typically would in a year’s time. The recommendations and letters from patients were glowing for these women and rightly so.

In happier headlines, the new aquatic center led to two more awards. The Man of the Year was City Administrator David Dockery, who had many long hours and dedicating in overseeing the development and construction of the new facility. Working alongside Mayor Sandy Skelton, who was himself the recipient of the Saints’ Roost Award, Dockery deserves praise for bringing a new crown jewel to downtown Clarendon and fulfilling the dream of generations of local kids – a public swimming pool! Both men have dedicated themselves as community servants outside their city roles, but what they accomplished – meeting the half a million-dollar challenge of an anonymous donor and creating a great new venue for our city – was nothing short of historic for our community.

In all, the Chamber of Commerce deserves great credit for last week’s banquet. The event successfully did what the Chamber does best – put Clarendon in the best possible light and trumpet all that is good about our community.

Meanwhile…

In combing through the archives for the Enterprise’s Chamber table decorations, we came across this gem from January 21, 1926. You know the old saying, the more things change…. Read now the words of Editor Sam Braswell:

“Tonight, the Clarendon Chamber of Commerce is observing its annual banquet and get together meeting for the purpose of reviewing the work of the organization for the past year and to lay plans for the coming twelve months. … There will be citizens who will not attend the meeting and who have been saying, just as they will continue to say, that the chamber of commerce “isn’t doing anything,” that it isn’t worth anything to the town, and all that sort of talk. The News lays down this challenge – that not a man who talks that way has helped during the past twelve months to do anything in this line with the program of the body, they have paid very little or nothing, they have not tried to inform themselves as to its activities and they will not in 1926. Just look them over and see if they don’t fit all those items. The helpful citizen is the critic who works for the advancement of his town, who thinks of methods that could be improved, who says so, and keeps working whether or not his suggestions are adopted. That sort of man is a real citizen.”