Chamber Holds Annual Banquet At New Venue

Customer Service Award was given to Francis Matthews for his work at the O'Neill Car Wash by Dave Laursen.

Ambassador Award was given to Delray Kumm by Pat Fritz.

The O'Neill Chamber of Commerce held its annual banquet last Friday evening at a new venue in the O'Neill Community Center.

The banquet which in, the past years has been held at the O'Neill National GuardArmory and had reached its capacity for holding the event . The O'Neill Community Center was well capable of handling this year's banquet.

The master of ceremonies for this year's event was George Holm the proprietor of O'Neill's Dairy Queen. The banquets theme was a 40's theme with videos of Glenn Miller and Count Bassie and Tommy Dorcey to name a few.

After the meal was completed the awards for the evening were given out.

The community service award went to KBRX Radio with Gil and Scott Poese accepting the award. Delray Kumm received an award for retiring from the chamber of commerce board after many years of service.

The other community service award was presented by Scott Gutshall and went to the O'Neill Men's Club for their numerous projects that help the community including the fire works, Easter egg hunt and toys for tots program to name a few. 

The customer service award went to Francis Matthews and was presented by Dave Laursen. And the final award of the night went to Delray Kumm for being the ambassador award.

Avera St. Anthony’s Hospital Nominees 

Accepted Prestigious International Awards

Awards - Cindy Jakubowski and Dean Benson with awards won at 12th annual Healthcare Service Excellence Conference.

Two Avera St. Anthony’s Hospital nominees accepted prestigious international awards at the 12th annual Healthcare Service Excellence Conference held Jan. 16-18 in Dallas, Texas. Dean Benson, PA-C won the Customer Focused Provider/PA-C award and the Avera Family won the OASIS team of the year award.  Nominations came in from all across the country and three to four finalists were chosen in each category. 

Dean Benson,  Avera St. Anthony’s Hospital orthopedic physician assistant, was recommended for his commitment and dedication to his patients, staff and facility. One coworker commented, “Dean demonstrates compassion and patience to the individuals he has the opportunity to see.  He is genuinely concerned about the ‘whole’ person when he helps treat and diagnose patients.  … He is probably one of the kindest, most compassionate, trustworthy individuals I have had the pleasure of working with in my experience in the health care field, and I feel patients benefit immensely when he takes care of them.”

The OASIS team was nominated for their ingenuity and insight in coordinating efforts to merge three health care entities, two primary care clinics and the hospital, into one.  The team’s goal was to make the new “family” members feel comfortable with their new culture, environment and coworkers as well as the mission and core values of Avera.  The first OASIS team meeting started with a blender in the conference room.  They made smoothies for team members to encourage idea building about how to “blend” the two clinics with the hospital into one happy family.  The project was largely successful due to their many creative ideas, from t-shirt design contests to creating a lip dubbed music video to “We Are Family." www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVrnkogKTaE.

Other finalists from Avera were the SEA team of It’s Five O’clock Somewhere represented by Amy Langan, Jane Smith and Matt Schmitz. The three-day forum was a gathering of healthcare professionals from across the continent, to discuss and showcase innovative methods to improve the experience of patients.

K-9 Training

K-9 Training from Atkinson, Norfolk, Cherry County, Valentine and Broken Bow enjoyed a training at O'Neill Public High School and St. Mary's High School on Jan. 26.

O'Neill Fire Department Kept Busy

The O'Neill Fire Department was called for mutual aide to a fire north of Bartlett where  just over 1,000 acres of prairie was burned last Thursday, Jan. 26. The fire was caused by a controlled burn, which was thought to be out, but the wind apparently ingnited a spark causing the huge prairie fire. Bartlett and Elgin Fire Departments were the first departments at the scene, but when the fire was finally controlled there were over 11 regional fire departments on the scene.  The fire began about noon and was finally extinguished around 5:00 p.m.

On Saturday the department was called to  a fire at the Gary Ferris' junkyard in Inman.  On arrival, a vehicle was found to be on fire. The fire was said to have been started by a cutting torch.  On Sunday Jan.29, at 6:00 a.m. the fire department responded to a small fire in a two wheel trailer in the alley between 8th and 9th Streets, north of Douglas Street.  This fire is under investigation.