Newsmakers: March 24-30, 2014

Banking & Finance
Arvest Bank hired Amber Mase as commercial/agriculture lender for the North National Avenue branch. Mase has 18 years of management, leadership and credit experience, previously working as a branch manager at Regions Bank in Bolivar.

With 13 years of lending experience, Summer Massey was promoted to commercial loan manager at Arvest Bank in Springfield. She has a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Missouri State University and also graduated from the American Bankers Association National Commercial Lending School at Southern Methodist University.  

Dr. Warford Johnson II and Benjamin Newhouse were appointed advisory directors for Bank of Missouri’s southwest Missouri market. Johnson is director of the Cardiology Outpatient Clinic at Mercy McCune-Brooks Hospital in Carthage, and Newhouse is CEO and president of Vineyard Asset Management LLC.

Nonprofit
Rib Shack owners Jennifer and Arthur Turner were named Small Business Owners of the Year in the Minorities in Business Heritage Awards. The fourth-annual awards also honored Deliverance Temple Ministries founder and pastor David Knox Jr. with the Achievement Award for four decades of leadership in ministry and counseling; community volunteer Lola Butcher with the Advocacy Award for her role in starting the Greater Springfield Center for Diversity and Reconciliation and organizing Straight for Equality events in conjunction with Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays; and Springfield Community Center founder Calvin Allen with the Community Service Award for three decades of service to area youth.