Thirty-two businesses, organizations or individuals have been nominated for business awards, organized by the Olds & District Chamber of Commerce.
"That's a lot; I suspect that's a record number (of businesses) that have been nominated," Business Awards Committee chair Murray Elliott said during the chamber's annual Business Beer and Blue Jeans event, held Sept. 11 at the Cow Palace.
Each year, business awards nominees are announced during that social.
This year, the 23rd annual Business Awards Recognition and Celebrations gala will be held Oct. 10 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Olds College Alumni Centre.
This year's theme is "growing business and community together."
Following are this year's nominees:
Business of the Year (16 or more employees) are B & M Home Hardware, Mountain View Seniors' Housing, and Sundial Growers.
Business of the Year (15 or fewer employees): Motocar Automotive (Bumper to Bumper), Gadgets Computers, the Cocoa Tree Bake Shoppe, Sawatzky's Auto Repair and Craig's Store Olds.
Community Spirit (for-profit businesses or organizations): Mountain View Publishing, Jensen's Men's Wear, Walmart Olds, Big Rack Rental, Olds Auction Mart/Rosehill Auction, Hildebrand Motors and Our Flames Restaurant & Lounge.
Community Spirit (non-profit organizations): Royal Canadian Legion branch 105, the Rotary Club of Olds, Uptowne Olds, Olds Fashioned Christmas (Olds Institute), and the Olds and District Hospice Society.
Youth employee of the year: Michael Prysunka of Advanced Telecom and Nolan Layden of World Class Contracting.
People's Choice Award: Preferred Pharmacy, Fountain Tire, Otto's Home Appliances, Treadpro, ilock and Key, A&W.
Better Business Bureau Business Ethics Award: Shopper's Drug Mart, Torrock Sales & Service/AMA Towing, Otto's Home Appliance, Westview Co-op.
During the evening, winners of monthly customer service award certificates were announced.
The grand winner of the trophy will be announced during the Business Awards gala.
In addition, the names of all exceptional customer service award nominees are put into a random draw for $400 in Chamber Bucks.
Twenty-nine people have been nominated for the grand customer service award.
"Seventy-seven nominations were received for 17 different businesses," Elliott said, adding he suspects that too is a record.
The names of those employees nominated are listed in another story in the Albertan.
Elliott thanked the many corporate sponsors who helped the chamber "do all we can to support business and community."
In addition to local businesses, thanks for that help were extended to the Town of Olds, Olds Regional Exhibition and Olds College.
