BUCKHANNON – The Buckhannon-Upshur Chamber of Commerce will recognize its members and celebrate local businesses at the annual awards dinner next week.

Tammy Reger, executive director of the Buckhannon-Upshur Chamber of Commerce, said the 2023 dinner will take place from 6-9 p.m. Thursday, March 16 at the Event Center at Brushy Fork.

“Tickets are still being sold, and the Opera House who’s doing the dinner for us needs dinner count on Thursday, so we’re hoping most of our tickets will be purchased prior to that, but they can still get tickets,” Reger said. “They can either email or call the chamber or stop by if they want to. They can get a ticket in the mail or have them held at the door.”

The 2023 dinner will also highlight a new program, Leadership Upshur.

“Our theme is ‘Leading the Way,’ and it’s based on our new program Leadership Upshur, so we’re celebrating leadership at our annual dinner. We will have several members of this first class in attendance at the dinner,” Reger said. “We have also asked Pam Farris, who’s the executive director with Leadership West Virginia, to be our speaker for this event.”

The Chamber will also give out five awards, including Organization of the Year, Business of the Year, Businesswoman of the Year, Businessman of the Year and Citizen of the Year.

“That’s the best thing about the awards — it’s a surprise — and we don’t let any of them know,” Reger said. “We go around and get bios from either their employer or somebody that’s close to them and we figure out a way to get them at a table or get somebody to bring them, so they have no clue they’re the ones winning the award until that evening.”

This will be the first dinner the Chamber has been able to have in person since 2020.

“We got really lucky in 2020 because we held our event early in March due to the speaker scheduling that year, so we were able to do our annual dinner right before the pandemic hit,” Reger said. “There were a lot of local chambers that did not get to hold their annual event in 2020, so we got very lucky, but then the following two years we held our event virtually, so we are so happy to be back in person this year.”

Mayor Robbie Skinner will be the event emcee and the Opera House is providing the dinner. Tickets may be purchased by calling the Chamber at 304-472-1722 or emailing Reger at info@buchamber.com.