Three businesses and two individuals were honored at the Nappanee Area Chamber of Commerce appreciation dinner and awards ceremony March 31. Pictured in the front row, from left, are Debra Miller, Main Street Coffee House, Excellence in Business award; Kim Ingle, Nappanee clerk-treasurer, Craftsmanship Award; Will Wilson, Citizen of the Year; and Evidene Graber, Graber’s Flooring Studio, Excellence in Business Award. In back are Marcus Miller, Main Street Coffee House, Excellence in Business Award; Joel Helmuth, Rocket Science Ice Cream, Excellence in Business Award; Tom Bennett, Educator of the Year; and Arden Graber, Graber’s Flooring Studio, Excellence in Business Award. (Photo by Phoebe Muthart)

Businesses and individuals were honored at the Nappanee Area Chamber of Commerce appreciation dinner and awards ceremony March 31. Three businesses were honored with the Excellence in Business Award, while two people were given the Craftsman Award and Citizen of the Year award.

Guest speaker was Adam Fleming of Goshen who spoke on “sourdough motivation.” Over 200 people attended the awards dinner.

Jeff Kitson, the chamber’s executive director, said, “This is the biggest turnout in my four years.”

The Educator of the Year was given to Tom Bennett, a sixth-grade science teacher at NorthWood Middle School.

Citizen of the Year was Will Wilson. He has been involved in Boy Scouts and is the past president of the chamber’s board.

The Craftsmanship Award was given to Kim Ingle, Nappanee’s clerk-treasurer. Ingle is retiring this year after 30 years.

Three business were honored with the Excellence in Business Award. The first award was given to Graber’s Flooring Studio Inc. owners Arden and Evidene Graber have owned the business for 21 years.

The second business award went to Main Street Coffee House. Owners Marcus and Debra Miller open the coffee house 10 years ago. They opened a second location in South Bend in 2010 and have 22 employees.

The third business honored was Rocket Science Ice Cream. Owner Steve Helmuth started the business five years ago.

Adam Fleming was the guest speaker at the Nappanee Area Chamber of Commerce appreciation dinner and awards ceremony March 31. His topic was “sourdough motivation,” a conceptual platform for fermentation of motivation and personal and corporate growth. (Photo by Phoebe Muthart)

Fleming discussed “sourdough motivation.” First, he said the best stories always come from family. He recalled how an encyclopedia saleswoman came to his house when he was a young boy selling books. His parents bought the books, making $23 a month payments because, he said, “The core value in our house while I was growing up was reading — anything and everything you could get your hands on.”

The deeper point of that story is that times have changed, Fleming noted. “Has anyone seen an encyclopedia saleswoman lately?” Fleming asked. “As quickly as it began, the information age ended. Selling information is a dying practice. We’re not in the information age, because you don’t sell information so much anymore.”

“Information is like air: it’s all around us,” he said. “But if information is air, relationships are breathing. Relationships help us inhale and exhale the information, using what’s helpful and discarding what isn’t.” Fleming added, “The business parallel is that the makings of a great business are in the air around you.”

Because people are motivated by relationship, not by information, people need to create a sourdough culture, where purpose, harmony and outside perspective work together, explained Fleming. “So your people stay engaged in your vision, their motivation is self-perpetuating, and your direction is well-navigated,” he told the crowd. “Creating your culture is more critical than ever.

“Imagine the first men tunneling through the Rockies to create the first trans-continental railroad,” he said. “They tunneled from both directions at the same time, to create a connection to see trains through to their destination.”

Fleming concluded, “You have to navigate very carefully if you want your tunneling crews to meet in the middle of a mountain.”

For a complete transcript of Fleming’s speech, visit sourdoughmotivation.com.
Kitson said the joint golf outing, with Wakarusa’s chamber, is June 17.