Overheard

Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau is working with Oasis Hotel’s Fire & Ice Restaurant on a campaign to pitch stories about the 45th anniversary of the invention of cashew chicken in 2008.

The campaign will target travel and food shows on the Travel Channel and Food Network, as well as some travel publications.

David Leong, the father of Fire & Ice Executive Chef Wing Yee Leong, is said to have developed the dish in 1963 as a way of bringing Asian cooking to the Ozarks.

Talk About a Merger

Two St. Louis communication agencies, one of which has a Springfield presence, are merging Dec. 1. Millennium Communications Inc. and Hughes will combine and operate as Hughes.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the new company will employ 48 and offer intelligence, technology, graphic design, media execution, advertising and trade show support services. The firms had worked together earlier this year on several joint projects and saw the potential in combining forces, according to a news release.

Millennium will move from its St. Louis office to Hughes’ office in the Art of Living Building at 1131 S. Seventh St. in St. Louis. Millennium’s Springfield office at 300 S. John Q. Hammons Parkway, Ste. 111, will be renamed Hughes. Millennium founder and President Barbara Pierce was named Hughes’ chief public relations officer.

Incredible Education

About 50 Springfield fifth-graders observed firsthand and learned in the classroom the basics of business from Incredible Pizza Co. and Evangel University Students in Free Enterprise officials. The SIFE team taught the Truman Elementary School students about the basic principles of business on one day, and the next, the students toured Incredible Pizza to talk with employees and see those principles in action, including how revenue is generated and different types of expenses.

Check Out Hunger

More than 70 local grocery and convenience stores are participating in a campaign to feed the Ozarks’ hungry during the holiday season.

During Ozarks Food Harvest’s annual Check Out Hunger campaign, which runs through the end of the year, customers may make tax-free donations in jars placed at the stores’ check-out counters. Participating stores are Akin’s, Dillon’s, Harter House, Murfin’s Market, Price Cutter, Ramey’s, Smillie’s, Smitty’s, Summer Fresh, Woods Supermarket and, new this year, Cody’s Convenience Stores. More than 150,000 people in the Ozarks are at risk of hunger, according to Ozarks Food Harvest.

For every dollar raised, the organization can feed seven people. Ozarks Food Harvest distributes more than 4 million pounds of food annually to its network of 323 agencies in 29 counties.