The Newton Chamber of Commerce took time to celebrate the successes over the past year while looking forward to the next year during its annual awards banquet and annual meeting Friday night at the Newton historic depot.
The chamber honored its current president Don Vares and also announced the Man and Woman of the Year. Miss Mississippi Holly Brand delivered the keynote address.
Joyce Sims was named the Woman of the Year after her hard work helped form and lead the Newton Beautification Committee, which is an organization of volunteers who are helping to improve the look of the community.
Over the past year, the committee has worked to improve the look of the downtown by trimming and cutting down hedges, landscaping downtown flowerbeds and raising money to help the city purchase and maintain the new flowers and bushes that have been planted over the last year.
“I really wasn’t expecting all of this, but none of this could been done without the help of the beautification project,” she said during her acceptance speech. “We never could have imagined that things would’ve blossomed the way that they have, and we could not have done any of what we’ve done community is you all.”
Jamie Baucum was also named Man of the Year. He was not present at the meeting to accept his award or give an acceptance speech, but Chamber Director Nena Hammond said that Baucum has been instrumental in volunteering and helping the chamber with any and every event it had during the past year.
