BROWNSTOWN — The Jackson County Chamber showed team spirit by hosting its annual dinner and awards ceremony Friday at Pewter Hall in Brownstown.
As the chamber prepared for game time, 300 community members, businesses and organizations came together dressed in their favorite sports attire to honor those in the community who have made an impact in this small town.
As he has for several years now, Ray Eakins served as master of ceremonies for the event and started the evening off by thanking the many sponsors for supporting the event and recognizing the current and outgoing board members.
The chamber also recognized members of the agribusiness, finance and special events committees along with Brownstown Central High School junior Luke Imlay, who won the 2023 Jackson County Maverick Challenge.
Eakins began the awards ceremony by recognizing the three Teacher of the Year award winners, one from each division — elementary, middle school and high school.
The Elementary School Teacher of the Year award went to Mendy Stahl, an art teacher at Brownstown Elementary School.
She began teaching first grade in 1992 after returning to Brownstown upon graduating from college. She then taught for many years at Brownstown Central Middle School before returning to the elementary school to teach art at the beginning of the 2019-20 school year.
Stahl has a passion for helping students reach their full potential and being a positive role model for the children she teaches, Eakins said while reading her nomination.
He said Stahl has had some highs and lows but has loved every step of her journey. She believes teaching art and encouraging creativity and positive school morale at Brownstown Elementary is the absolute highlight of her career.
The Middle School Teacher of the Year was awarded to Haley Davis, who was born and raised in Texas and graduated from Texas A&M University with a teaching certificate in elementary education and English as a second language.
After graduation, she began her teaching career in Texas and taught prekindergarten and fourth grade. Upon becoming engaged to her now husband, Davis made the move to Jackson County — her new home.
She taught fifth grade in Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. at a project-based learning school before ultimately obtaining her position at Seymour Community School Corp. as a sixth grade English language teacher, Eakins said.
Davis said this position has become her passion to fiercely love multilingual learners who can oftentimes be misunderstood or overlooked and advocate for them whenever she has the opportunity.
High School Teacher of the Year was awarded to Matt Dennis, who has been teaching for 19 years, all at Seymour High School. He started teaching math and honors chemistry, which were his major and minor at Ball State University. Since then, he has added a physics teaching license and has become qualified to teach computer science.
In addition, he has served as the boys soccer head coach for the past 12 years and was a boys soccer assistant coach before that for four seasons. He has been on the Seymour Soccer Association board for 16 years.
The next award honored the Young Professional of the Year, which is presented to an individual who has made a positive impact in the community. This award is only for those who are an active and good standing member of Jackson County Young Professionals and 40 years of age or under.
Brittany Percival was the recipient with her active involvement in many organizations throughout Jackson County. Along with being a Young Professionals member, she currently serves as president of the Seymour Rotary Club, is a Jackson County Chamber ambassador and a Maverick Challenge mentor and is a member of the St. John’s Sauers Lutheran School parent-teacher organization and chairs the auction committee.
Percival is a mortgage lender with First Financial Bank, where she supports Jackson, Jennings and surrounding counties.
Chamber Director Dan Robison then provided some updates of the Jackson County Chamber and its reach throughout the community.
In 2022, the chamber had a total of 372 members and maintained a 94% retention rate of membership.
“To give you some perspective on this, that is the second highest number in the state of Indiana of chambers our size,” Robison said.
Smalltown Strong, which was started as a Facebook group in mid-March 2020, now has more than 17,000 members. In the past year, the chamber also welcomed 32 new members and participated in 26 ribbon cuttings.
Also Friday night, awards for the Business Hall of Fame were presented to three businesses of varying sizes. The divisions of this category were small business, which consists of nine employees or less, medium business that consists of between 10 and 49 employees and large business with more than 50 employees.
Skaggs Builders won the small business division, Centra Credit Union won the medium business division and Covered Bridge Health Campus won the large business division.
Lastly, the chamber presented the Committee Member of the Year award to Leah Branaman for her continued involvement with the special events committee and surprised Eakins with the Spirit of the Chamber award, which recognizes dedication to the community and an inspiration to others.