More Than an Award Show

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The Stillwater Chamber of Commerce's annual Awards Gala was scheduled for January. Then the weather had other ideas. The result was a snowy detour into February — but the purpose stayed the same: gather hundreds of local leaders and business owners under one roof, and celebrate.

No auction. No raffle. No fundraising pitch. Just recognition.

"This is truly a celebration of our community and our business owners and just of what's been accomplished through the year," said James Wells, the Chamber's past board chair. "There's no raffle. It's truly just a celebration."

That distinction — gala as celebration, not fundraiser — is intentional, and it shapes everything about the evening. The Chamber positions its annual event as the opening note of Stillwater's gala season, a moment to pause before the next year's work begins. Other organizations in town use similar evenings to raise money for important causes, and the Chamber supports those efforts. But this night belongs to the businesses and individuals who showed up, put in the work, and helped the community move forward.

For Chamber President and CEO Alane Zannotti, the evening begins with a toast.

"We get so busy and wrapped up in doing all the time and trying to meet the next goal," Zannotti said. "An event like this makes us pause and say, you know what? We had a pretty terrific last year."

The production itself has evolved into something closer to a television awards show than a traditional banquet — a word the staff avoids on principle. A jazz trio — drums, upright bass, and piano — sets the cocktail-hour tone. Communications Coordinator Landry Bledsoe designs a year-in-review photo slideshow that plays across the Alumni Center's large screens, pulling from events throughout the year.

This year, Director of Marketing & Events Grace Impson — the creative force behind the event — introduced a new element: walk-up music for each award recipient paired with a pre-recorded voice over announcer.

"I'm always looking for ways to elevate this event," Impson said. "Adding the music and the voiceover brings a new level of excitement. I want this event to feel like the award shows you see on TV, but with the best of Stillwater represented."

The glue that holds it together

None of it happens without the staff. Zannotti introduced her team from the stage early in the evening — a moment that drew applause and, for those who know how much work disappears behind the scenes, felt earned.

"The chamber team really is truly the glue that holds everything together," said Dr. Clyde C. Wilson Jr., the Chamber's incoming board chair. "They're not the ones being celebrated or highlighted. But they're the ones behind the scenes making the calls, figuring out how to connect this business to this business — like the puppeteer, maneuvering around to get everyone connected."

Wells, who served as board chair for the past year, echoed that view.

"The staff always rallies," he said. "They find a pivot point. They understand there's never really a slow time — we're just going from one thing to the next. I have nothing but praise for them."

The Chamber's six-person team each brings a distinct set of responsibilities to the gala. Impson leads event planning and oversees the awards process. Lyons handles the financial and operational side. Director of Membership Kimie Calcagno works the floor, connecting people and watching the room with the eye of someone who has spent a career studying what makes professional relationships click.

"I'm a people watcher," Calcagno said. "I like watching people interact with each other. And then it's exciting when you get to see community members get an award — seeing their family and friends there to celebrate with them."

Bledsoe, who shot photos for OSU Athletics before joining the Chamber, handles photography throughout the evening. McKenzie serves as her second shooter — a role she has filled before — and hands off her SD card at the end of the night for Bledsoe to edit. After the gala, Bledsoe uploads the full collection to the Chamber's Flickr account and begins rolling out individual winner posts on social media, each one paired with the award recipient's magazine spread.

This is McKenzie's third gala, and she noticed something different this year during setup.

"I feel like our confidence has just grown," McKenzie said. "Being able to look forward to it more rather than being nervous about how it's going to go."

That confidence, Wilson said, is something the board actively tries to protect and build on.

"As an executive committee and board, our goal is to understand the fine delicacy of governance versus administration — to stand on the side of governance and provide advice, insight, and recommendations," Wilson said. "How do we create the systems that set them up for success?"

The case for every business in the room

Getting to that night requires months of work — and this year, a significantly overhauled selection process.

Grace Impson, the Chamber's director of marketing and events, redesigned the awards process after recognizing a problem with the old model. Under the previous system, anyone could nominate a business with as little as a single sentence. A one-line submission carried the same weight as a detailed, substantive case. That changed this year.

"I felt like that just wasn't really fair," Impson said. "So we expanded the process."

Nominations opened July 21 — just months after the previous gala — and any business that received a nomination was then invited to complete a full application: five substantive questions plus background on the business's history, employee count, and community involvement. If a nominee chose not to complete the application, that was their call. Most did.

The result was a dramatically different reading load for the awards committee. Where committee members previously reviewed roughly 20 pages of nominations, this year's packet exceeded 120 pages.

"You have no idea until you sit in a room and you have to choose awards, and you just see how amazing our community is," Wells said. "It's just like, how do you pick? You kind of catch yourself sitting back and you're like, what an awesome community we have."

The awards committee is made up of board members, the past and incoming board chairs, and Zannotti as a voting member. Impson and Vice President of Finance and Operations Mandy Lyons attend but don't vote — they're there to provide context on how active each nominee is as a Chamber member. Board members whose own businesses were nominated this cycle had to recuse from the process entirely.

"Now businesses who win these awards know they are competing against other people who also took the time to fill this application out," Impson said. "It legitimizes the award."

The work that happens before the work

Winners are notified by Oct. 1 — a timeline driven not by the gala, but by the Commerce Magazine. Impson visits each award winner at their place of business for an in-person interview, arriving with their application already in hand, which gave her a running start on each story this year. The magazine's deadline fell on Dec. 16.

During that window, winners are asked to keep their recognition quiet. Some go further. Firebrand Construction, this year's recipient of the newly created Emerging Business of the Year award, told employees only that the company was sponsoring the gala — which is why they had to come.

"Getting to sit down with our award winners and tell their stories through the Commerce Magazine is one of the most meaningful parts of my job," Impson said. "I don't take that responsibility lightly and I leave every conversation inspired. After meeting with Steve and Becky Irby this year, I was especially reminded of what makes Stillwater so special. They're the perfect example of what it means to be part of the Stillwater community — to love your neighbor, give back, and invest in your community. It's never lost on me what a special opportunity it is to share these stories."

Normally, the Commerce Magazine makes its debut at the gala itself, letting the award announcements and the launch land together. This year, a winter weather event forced a postponement, and the magazine reached mailboxes before the rescheduled date. The delay also created a scheduling crunch: a planned database migration, a brand-new Day at the Capitol event, a business luncheon, and a business after hours all converged into the same stretch, resulting in five events in eight days.

Zannotti credited a seasoned staff — the first time since she joined the Chamber that no one on the team is brand new — with keeping the week in order.

"It doesn't matter what position we hold," she said. "If we see that something needs done, we get it done."

Class 34's year of doing more

For the first time in at least a decade, the Chamber held a separate graduation ceremony for Leadership Stillwater — giving participants and their families a dedicated moment rather than a segment carved out of the gala. Class 34 was still recognized at the event, where a class representative announced the results of their year-long community project.

Their mantra: Do More with 34.

Class 34 chose the LIFE Center Adult Day Services as their nonprofit partner — an organization that provides daytime care, therapeutic programming, and social enrichment for older adults and adults with disabilities in Stillwater and surrounding communities. To raise awareness and funds, the class organized three events Stillwater had not seen before: a Harvest Festival and concert at Block 34, a Breakfast with Santa, and a Murder Mystery Dinner in which class members played the roles.

"Our class wanted to create something bold, interactive, and unforgettable," said Natalie Noles, a Class 34 member. "By turning our classmates into actors and actresses for a Murder Mystery Dinner, we were able to put on a show with the community, not just for it."

The class raised $44,000. A matching grant from the Carl C. Anderson Sr. & Marie Jo Anderson Charitable Foundation, combined with in-kind vehicle repairs from Xtra Mile Auto Care, pushed the total economic benefit to LIFE Center past $60,000. Beyond the fundraising, approximately 20 Class 34 members are now joining local nonprofit boards as a direct result of their Leadership Stillwater experience.

The part everyone came for

The evening also marked a formal leadership transition. Wells officially passed the board chair role to Dr. Clyde C. Wilson Jr., who outlined three priorities for 2026 from the stage: investment in the future, growing together, and standing with Stillwater. The handoff had been in a kind of collaborative limbo since the weather postponement delayed the original January gala — the two had spent the intervening month working in parallel, co-navigating responsibilities the event was meant to formally separate.

"We were a united front across the board," Wilson said.

Thirteen awards were presented across the program, including two new categories making their debut. The Legacy Business of the Year — recognizing a business in operation for more than 50 years — went in its inaugural year to Stan Clark Companies, the Stillwater company behind Eskimo Joe's, which marked 50 years in business this past summer. The Emerging Business of the Year, for businesses less than five years old, went to Firebrand Construction, founded by Kyler McCommas in 2021 and now employing a team of 11 out of a brick-and-mortar office in downtown Stillwater.

The Hall of Fame, the evening's highest individual honor, went to Steve and Becky Irby of Stillwater Designs — the Stillwater-based audio brand known globally as Kicker. Mayor Will Joyce, presenting the award, traced the Irbys' story from a garage startup to a globally recognized brand and decades of quiet civic investment. "They didn't just build a company," Joyce said. "They built community." Their support of the United Way, the YMCA, and Block 34's Kicker Stage — and a street now bearing their name behind it — reflects a philosophy Joyce distilled simply: "If you can help, you help."

Bobby and Crystal Wintle of District Bicycle received the Chamber Choice Award, selected by Chamber staff and board members, in part for their response during last year's wildfires. When the Mid South cycling event was canceled the weekend the fires swept through, cyclists stayed in Stillwater, supported local businesses, and donated to relief efforts. The Wintles did not hesitate.

Jim Beckstrom was named Citizen of the Year for his leadership on Block 34, the Dancing Turtle Arts Festival downtown, and the ongoing effort to restore Washington School — a project he called "the soul of the community" from the stage.

The full list of 2025 honorees: Lifetime Achievement, Betty and Albert Rutledge; Agribusiness of the Year, The Twelves; Next Generation of Agriculturalists, Joey Tubbs; Farm Family of the Year, Brent and Jenny Haken; Chamber Volunteer of the Year, Nancy German; Young Professional of the Year, Chris Stockton; Small Business of the Year, Therapy Specialists; Earl & Bernice Mitchell Inclusive Excellence Award, Opportunity Orange Scholars; Nonprofit of the Year, United Way of Payne County; Leading Edge Award, Meridian Technology Center; Family-Owned Business of the Year, Fisher Provence Realtors; Large Business of the Year, The Original Hideaway Pizza.

The four agribusiness categories are administered through the Chamber's Agribusiness Committee, which holds its own recognition banquet each May; those honorees are also featured in the Commerce Magazine alongside the annual award winners.

The story that keeps getting told

The Stillwater Chamber of Commerce operates in two distinct lanes. One is the traditional chamber model — membership, networking, events, and advocacy for the local business community. The other is less visible but equally consequential: the Chamber holds a contract with the City of Stillwater to provide and support economic development, working directly with businesses interested in operating in the area to evaluate fit, connect them with resources, and help determine whether Stillwater is the right place for them to land.

The Commerce Magazine sits at the intersection of both, and for Kari Moore, the Chamber's director of economic development, it is one of the most effective tools she has.

"It's one of the easiest ways for us to have a first touchpoint and talk about the business community — the kind of people successfully doing business in Stillwater," Moore said.

That first impression matters. Zannotti and her team redesigned the magazine when she joined the Chamber to make it a direct reflection of everything the organization does in a given year — economic development wins, strategic goals, staff, committees, and the award winners' stories. The result is something Moore can hand to a developer, a prospective employer, or a newly relocated worker and let it speak before she says a word.

The gala itself plays a similar role. Last year, when Kingspan began onboarding key employees from other countries and states to Stillwater, the Chamber made sure they were in the room.

"We said, we want you to see the kind of community and the ways that our businesses give back to the places where your kids are going to grow up," Moore said. "It's all a part of economic development."

For out-of-state and international prospects especially, an evening like the gala conveys something that a data sheet cannot. Photos, videos, a room full of people who clearly want to celebrate the businesses and their leaders — those details answer the question of whether a business can see their employees loving where they live and work, a key factor in determining where to land.

"The goal is for them to experience it firsthand — whether they come to the gala or they see the videos and they're like, that triggers a feeling for me. That feels like home," Moore said.

That calculus is becoming more relevant as Stillwater's economic profile shifts. Calcagno, who compiles a running list of new businesses that appear on social media before the Chamber has a chance to reach them, said she counted 65 such businesses from January alone. On the economic development side, Moore said the Chamber's position — and its City contract — now allows it to do something that wasn't always possible: help incoming businesses figure out whether Stillwater is genuinely the right fit, rather than simply recruiting any company willing to come.

"We want business here that wants to be a part of the community," Moore said. That means asking prospective companies about their culture, their employee benefits, and how they've partnered with communities where they've operated before. It also means occasionally pointing a company toward a better match elsewhere. "If they're not involved in their communities, if they're not engaged and don't have an interest in partnerships — they're probably not a good fit for us."

"Stillwater is kind of on the cusp of going to the next level," Calcagno said. "And it's going to be here sooner versus later."

The gala, in that sense, is both a celebration of where things stand and evidence of the case the Chamber makes every time it walks into a room with the Commerce Magazine in hand.

Zannotti closed the evening with a thought that could just as easily describe why the gala exists in the first place. Stillwater's strength, she said, "isn't found in any one building or organization — it's found in its people." The two new award categories, the fuller application packets, the walk-up music, the separate graduation ceremony — all of it is the Chamber finding new ways to say that more precisely, and to more people, each year.

This story was produced in partnership with the Stillwater Chamber of Commerce as part of The Stillwegian's sponsored content program.