Frances and Ed Glenn receive the Pioneer Award from Don Russell during the Boardman Chamber of Commerce awards banquet Feb. 12, 2016. People nominate Boardman residents for awards that are announced at the annual Distinguished Citizens Awards Banquet, and then a committee of chamber board members and community members from schools and local businesses convenes to decide on the winner for each category. The tradition continues, with the 2024 event set to take place March 8.

BOARDMAN — The Boardman Chamber of Commerce on Friday, March 8, hosts the 34th annual Distinguished Citizens Awards Banquet, an event to honor local residents and fundraise for high school students’ scholarships.

This year’s Emerald-and-Gold-themed event, which starts at 6 p.m. at the Port of Morrow Riverfront Center, will feature tri-tip or chicken dinners made by GG’s Smokehouse Catering by Amber and drinks by Destination Bartending.

“The goal of our community event is to raise funds for the scholarship champions, and that money is donated to the Riverside High School seniors,” said Heather Baumgartner, chief operating officer of the Boardman Chamber of Commerce.

Students at the high school also earn volunteer hours by helping the banquet run smoothly and assisting with cleanup after the event is over. In that way, it’s a mutually beneficial approach.

“But, also on top of that, we do recognize a lot of our community members,” Baumgartner said. “Part of that helps our community kind of try to do better each year as well, to try to strive for that award, and it just makes us a better community as a whole.”

Banquet basics

The chamber presents seven awards each year, including Citizen of the Year, Educator of the Year, Frontline Worker of the Year, Business Person of the Year, Business of the Year, Youth Citizen of the Year and Pioneer of the Year.

Baumgartner said the chamber keeps track of who wins the awards each year and makes sure that new people are honored every year to highlight all those in the community who are making a difference.

“The people that are nominated, they are very deserving of everything they’re nominated for,” she said.

As of the morning of March 4, there were 24 tickets remaining for the gala out of the 130 initially available. Baumgartner said every year is different for whether — or how quickly — the event sells out. It can depend on which businesses are sponsoring the event or what else people have going on at the time.

“There have been some years where we’ve sold out within the first couple of days,” she said, “and then there are some years that we’re still filling tickets as they walk through the door.”

But next year, she said, the chamber is hoping to host the event at the SAGE Center, which is expanding to open an event space sometime this year that will be about double the size of the Riverfront Center.

Peeking behind the scenes

Preparations for the event begin about two to three months before it occurs.

Residents nominate Boardman residents for each award, and then a committee of chamber board members and community members from schools and local businesses convenes to decide on the winner for each category.

“It is a community response,” Baumgartner said of the decision-making process.

Businesses also can get involved in the banquet as sponsors of the event, donating money or preparing a basket for a table centerpiece, filled with goods or services for people to bid on as part of a fundraising auction.

The three employees working for the chamber do almost all the work themselves. They reach out to businesses, they hire and organize the catering and bartending, they put together a “shop local” basket from the chamber for bidding, and they arrange for awards to be created for the recipients. Then, when it comes time to set up, they do that too.

“We’re the ones who go in and decorate everything,” Baumgartner said. “It’s definitely a long process, and it’s just the three of us that do the bulk of it.”

Baumgartner said every year, no matter how much they prepare, there always is something that goes at least a little bit wrong.

“We always make it work, though,” she said.

For this year’s event, there still is work left to do.

“We’re still gathering the baskets and the gift cards,” she said, and “we need to put the baskets together.”

And then on March 6 and 7, Baumgartner and her coworkers will be spending most of each day decorating the space and setting up tables.

It’s going to be a busy week, she said, “but we’ll get it done.”

Find full details and purchase tickets at www.boardmanchamber.org.