Eight southwest Missouri leaders to receive Missourian Award

The 14th annual Missourian Award ceremony will be held Sept. 29 in Jefferson City. Proceeds from the event will benefit the American Heart Association, said event organizer Ralph Slavens.

Local honorees are: Jodie Adams, Dr. Loren E. Broaddus, Dianne Elizabeth Osis, Karen Thomas and John Twitty from Springfield; Dr. Charles H. Bentlage and Rob O’Brian III from Joplin; and John T. Russell from Lebanon.

Award recipient Adams, director of Springfield-Greene County Park Board, said southwest Missouri is a thriving area, and that’s why so many locals are taking home Missourian Awards this year.

“We are getting a lot of top people in our community,” said Adams, who was recently elected as president of the National Recreation and Park Association for the 2008–09 term.

Fellow honoree Twitty, general manager and CEO of City Utilities of Springfield, served in a national capacity as 2006–07 chairperson of American Public Power Association. He said he’s received honors within his industry before, but the Missourian Award is the highest general individual honor that he’s received.

Meanwhile, Osis – founder, president and publisher of Springfield Business Journal and Joplin Tri-State Business – said she is “very proud and happy” to receive a Missourian Award.

“It’s a great honor when you consider other recipients, both from previous years and from this year,” she said.

Not counting this year’s crop, 116 people have received Missourian Awards, including such luminaries as Sam Walton, Walt Disney and Jack Buck. Past recipients from Springfield include hotelier John Q. Hammons, outdoorsman Johnny Morris and financial adviser Nadia Cavner.

Missourian Award founder and chairman Slavens, a retired Springfield real estate broker, said he and his wife, Corrine, established the awards in 1993 with Gov. Mel Carnahan’s blessing. The couple wanted to honor Missouri residents who had given to their communities.

“It kind of makes me feel warm inside just to see them say, ‘Thank you,’ or I wouldn’t be doing it,” Ralph Slavens added.

A five-person committee selected this year’s honorees from of 26 nominations. Slavens said he’d begin accepting nominations after the beginning of the year for next year’s event, which will be scheduled at a later date. Nominations can be sent to Slavens at 3252 S. Oak Ave., Springfield, MO 65804.

Tickets to the award ceremony are $100 each and are available through Sept. 28 by calling Bill Mathis, event president, at (636) 938-1100.

2007 Missourian Award Recipients

Jodie Adams, Springfield

Director of Springfield-Greene County Park Board and responsible for more than 90 parks, 500 programs and a $30 million annual operating budget

Dr. Charles H. Bentlage, Joplin

Retired U.S. Air Force colonel, retired general surgeon and former chief medical officer for Freeman Health System

Cynthia J. Brinkley, St. Louis

Missouri native and president of AT&T Missouri who has served more than 20 years with the company in various executive capacities across the nation

Dr. Loren E. Broaddus, Springfield

Internist and board member for CoxHealth, medical director for Ferrell-Duncan Clinic and former chief of staff of CoxHealth

Brian (Rob) O’Brian III, Joplin

President of Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce since 1995, handling projects that have generated more than 10,300 jobs and nearly $300 million in new capital investment

Dr. David L. Ohlms, St. Charles

Psychiatrist and staff member at three St. Louis-area hospitals who has published and presented more than 200 professional papers during a 30-year career

Dianne Elizabeth Osis, Springfield

Michigan native and former teacher who moved to Missouri in 1979 and a year later started Springfield Business Journal, which now has a sister publication, Joplin Tri-State Business

John T. Russell, Lebanon

Retired executive of Detroit Tool Cos. in Lebanon and member of the Missouri Legislature for 42 years – 28 years in the Missouri Senate

Karen Thomas, Springfield

Since 2000, president of Oxford HealthCare, a 1,400-employee company that operates the state’s largest home-health telemonitoring program

John Twitty, Springfield

Twenty-three-year veteran of the utility industry, who since 2002, has been general manager and CEO for City Utilities of Springfield and its 250,000 customers

Don Walsworth, Marceline

CEO of Walsworth Publishing Co. Inc., a 1,500-employee operation that is one of the largest yearbook publishers in the world

Ted Wetterau, St. Louis (posthumous)

Former president of food distribution firm Wetterau Inc., which sold in the early 1990s to Eden Prairie, Minn.-based grocer SuperValu