Stop the Presses: SBJ celebrates 22nd anniversary, Economic Impact Awards

There's nothing like recuperating from a serious illness or major surgery to make us grateful for the lives we have, the people who inhabit them and the work that we have been given to do.

After limping through the last couple of years with a worn-out hip joint, and then finally working up the courage and acceptance to go through the ordeal of getting a replacement part, I am particularly glad to be walking straight again better and longer than I have in a long time and to be well enough in time to celebrate Springfield Business Journal's 22nd anniversary in publishing.

SBJ's anniversary date has become much more meaningful to me and all the newspaper staff now that we mark it with the annual Economic Impact Awards event and special publication. After all, it is the strength of Springfield and southwest Missouri businesses and organizations that makes our weekly paper a viable enterprise itself.

This year's anniversary is extra good. I'm feeling new direction and energy in life and in career, just as I see my friend and long-time colleague, SBJ Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Dorothy Gardner, regain her health and strength after a grueling and painful bout with cancer. The first issue of TOP's Executive Journal, the Business Journal's forerunner, was dated July 22, 1980. And finally, the 22nd falls on our regular Monday publication date once again. Now we have the pleasure and excitement of presenting the 2002 Economic Impact and Lifetime Achieve-ment award finalists in what looks to be a sell-out event this Thursday night, July 25, at The Tower Club.

There's one more thing maybe you've noticed already. The Springfield Business Journal has a new look beginning with the issue you are holding. After many weeks, months years even of dreaming, planning and "running the numbers" backward and then forward again, SBJ is reinventing itself with a new design.

Notice the classy "stitch and trim." Business journals are a hybrid type of news publication to begin with, and this style offers a new, neater format for readers. Please note the crisper photographs and brighter colors, results of a special combination of talented staffers, new and upgraded computer graphic capabilities, and the initiation of a new printing partnership with KOPCO Printing Inc. in Caney, Kan. KOPCO's printing process uses heat-set inks, ending grubby newspaper-smudged hands.

Special recognition must go to the teamwork of all Business Journal departments editorial, production and design, advertising, circulation, and administration for bringing about what I believe are noteworthy and important changes for this relatively small and local organization. What a group!

Recognition of the finalists in the 2002 Economic Impact Awards is the most important order of business this week. These are the organizations and people that make it possible for SBJ to keep on keeping on: Drury University, Evangel University and Ozarks Technical Community College in the education category; Discovery Center, Lakes Country Soccer and Wonders of Wildlife Museum in the recreation category; J. Howard Fisk Limousines, O&S Trucking and Spring-field-Branson Regional Airport in the transportation shipping category; Rankin Company, R.B. Murray Company and Wilhoit Properties in the commercial real estate category; and Banta Foods and Jackson Brothers Vending and Food Service in the food services category. Prominent local businesspeople Carol Jones, Ralph K. Manley and Robert W. Plaster have been nominated for this year's Lifetime Achievement in Business Award.

I don't envy the judges' having to make the tough decisions. I want to congratulate all the finalists.

Life is good. This is a good community. We're lucky people to live in the day, time and nation that we do. What else can I tell you?

Oh, yes, if you know of a business or individual that should be considered in the 2003 Economic Impact Awards, or for any of the other signature SBJ recognition events, please call our office at 417-831-3238 for nomination instructions.