Local business' impact to be honored at July 20 event

Some of southwest Missouri's most successful businessesbe honored this month as part of the Springfield Business Journal's Economic Impact Awards. One person will also be honored with the Lifetime in Business Achievement Award.

The event recognizes 15 nominees in five business categories: retail, financial services, telecommunications, information technology and real estate. All 15 business nominees, as well as the Lifetime Achievement winner, are profiled in the Economic Impact publication, a magazine to be inserted in the July 17 edition of SBJ.

At an awards event, one nominee will be honored in each category. The nominees for this year's Economic Impact Awards are: (retail) Wickman's Garden Village, Nixa Hardware & Seed and Walgreens; (information technology) NetWorks Inc., Jack Henry & Associates and TravelNow.com; (financial services) First USA Bank, The Bank and Liberty Bank; (real estate) Carol Jones Realtors, Murney Associates and Rankin & Company; (telecommunications) Southwestern Bell, ProTel and Russell Cellular.

The Lifetime Achievement award will be given to one of nine nominees. Those nominees are: Thomas E. Wirt, president of the Wirt Corporation; Ray Thomas, vice president and general manager for Alltel in Missouri; Hearld R. Ambler, retired managing partner for Baird, Kurtz & Dobson; Jack Stack, president and chief executive officer of Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation; John Q. Hammons, local developer and hotel owner; Betty J. Neal, investment advisor with Edward Jones; Ralph K. Manley, retired builder and developer; William Turner, president and chief executive officer at Great Southern Bank; and Penmac Personnel Services founder Patti A. Penny.

All judging was done through an independent panel of people who come from a cross-section of industries. Candidates were evaluated from a selection of nominations made by businesspeople.

The awards event will be held at 7 p.m. at the Tower Club in the John Q. Hammons Building. A main feature of the event will be speaker Laurie J. Murphy, a training and leadership skills consultant whose clients include Wal-Mart, Motorola and Frigidaire.