Chamber ‘nailed it’ with inaugural business honors

The tablecloths have been removed.

The balloons are most likely popped.

The tables and chairs are put away.

The 85th annual Kingfisher Chamber of Commerce Banquet has come and gone and what a gala it was.

More than 400 community- minded people gathered at the Kingfisher County Exhibit Building to dress up, catch up and lift up one another.

Worthy people were honored from Greg Kannady being Citizen of the Year to Kingfisher AMBUCS being the Volunteers of the Year.

Our Fire Chief Tony Stewart was prodded into showing up, then surprised with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Heather Finley was among the stunning-ly dressed for the “black tie” event and the judges felt the same in giving her the Best Dressed Award.

As we were leading up to the banquet, I couldn’t help but wonder who was going to win the two new awards: Small Business of the Year and Large Business of the Year.

As both were being introduced, it hit me they were both the absolute obvious choices.

And the absolute deserving… not just for the businesses they are, but for the people who run them.

Let me take you back a couple of years.

Yours truly was presented with one of the awards during the banquet in January 2022.

After being named the “2021 Citizen of the Year,” I was bombarded with handshakes, atta-boys and pats on the back.

It was a whirlwind hour or so, much of which I can’t remember.

Not to take away from any others, but there were two conversations that stood out to me that night.

One was with Brian Walter, owner of Walter Building Center, which was named the Small Business of the Year.

Brian knew me. We’ve crossed paths several times.

But he’d just heard me mention my family on stage.

He asked me if he could meet my wife and daughter, then he genuinely asked them questions to better acquaint himself with them.

I was taken back to that moment when Brian Henderson was introducing Brian’s business as the winner last Monday.

“Two things that are certain when you walk in the door,” Henderson said. “You will be acknowledged immediately and you will be greeted by name if they know it!”

Brian cares about his business. Brian cares about his employees. Brian cares about Kingfisher.

Brian cares about you, which he showed me that evening in 2022.

John Johnson was another who came up to me that evening.

I’ll keep our conversation private, but what he told me struck me profoundly as he congratulated me.

It’s among the most honored I’d ever felt.

I stood on stage that night, looked at the crowd and said there were people in the audience that I strive to be like.

I named several. John Johnson is at the top of my list.

So it mattered more than he knew when he said what he said later that night.

His son, Jeff, no doubt is following in his father’s footsteps.

I got pretty sick in 2021 and was out of commission for a lengthy stretch.

Jeff made sure to text me almost daily away from our group text to check on my well-being.

He didn’t have to, but he did.

He’s got that same sense of the importance of community possessed by his father and his late uncle, Mike Johnson.

The Johnsons and Brian Walter are a bit different.

When John and Jeff took the stage on Monday night, you could tell they couldn’t wait to get “out” of the spotlight.

“I liked it a lot better when it was you up there,” Jeff told me afterward.

They don’t desire recognition and will no doubt hate that I’ve put “this” spotlight on them in these pages.

When Brian took the stage, he couldn’t wait to get his family and employees up there with him.

But the Johnsons and Brian Walter are also very much alike.

One business sits on the north end of Kingfisher and the other on the south…and both care about every brick that lies between them.

They care about Kingfi sher.

Whether it’s through their successful businesses that put Kingfisher on the map, through their philanthropic efforts, through their physical labors or through their “just showing up” to support, the Johnsons and the Walters are ever-present forces in Kingfisher.

Both do A LOT for Kingfisher that you see, read about and know about.

Both do so much more that you never see, will never read about and will never know about unless you are the one benefitting from their generosity and genuine love for their community.

They both love Kingfisher to its core and strive daily to make it a better place.

And they do. So kudos to the Kingfisher Chamber of Commerce for nailing it on the inaugural Business of the Year awards.

It couldn’t go to better businesses. It couldn’t go to better people.