December: Briefly in the News
2015 Roots N Blues Snapshot
The 2015 Roots N Blues N BBQ festival drew more than 24,000 attendees from 42 states, 2 Canadian provinces and Great Britain. The event hosted 28 artists on stage and 27 food vendors served festival-goers. Mid-America Harley Davidson raised $4,500 for the Blues in the Schools program, and the Roots N Blues Foundation raised $3,150. The Roots N Blues N BBQ half-marathon and 10K had 1,360 participants. Next year’s Roots N Blues will be held Sept. 30 through Oct. 2.
True Media Opens Office
True Media has opened a new office in the warehouse district in downtown Minneapolis. This is the company’s fourth office. CEO Jack Miller says the company has worked with clients in the Minnesota and Wisconsin areas and already had employees living and working in the area. True Media’s other offices are located in St. Louis and Alberta.
Best Workplace for Women
Fortune Magazine and Great Place to Work® ranked Veterans United Home Loans as one of the 100 Best Workplaces for Women. VU was ranked 48th. The companies included were selected based on evaluations by more than 135,000 women employees. Topics in the survey included fairness of company promotions, access to leadership, support of employees’ personal lives and levels of inclusiveness. More than 600 companies were studied for the ranking.
MU Nurses Recognition
Two University of Missouri Health Care nurses were named March of Dimes 2015 Nurses of the Year. Heather Dennis, R.N., a triage nurse and certified breastfeeding educator at the pediatric clinic at South Providence Medical Park, won the 2015 Pediatric Nurse of the Year award. Helen Jankowski, R.N., a clinical informatics nurse with the Tiger Institute for Health Innovation, won the 2015 Clinical Informatics Nurse of the Year award.
Central Bank Art Show
Central Bank of Boone County and the Columbia Art League held the 56th annual Boone County Art Show. The Bank Purchase Award was presented to Kate Gray for “Forever Grateful,” and the piece will be added to the bank’s permanent collection. The People’s Choice Award was presented to Joel Sager for
“Rural Structure XXXII.” Nine other awards were presented as well.
Columbia Debt Savvy
Smart Asset, a New York financial technology company, conducted a study to find cities where people were most debt savvy. Columbia was ranked first in the state of Missouri. The study evaluated credit score, average personal loan debt, credit utilization and mortgage foreclosure rate.
Veterans Training
The Trulaske College of Business has partnered with a national entrepreneurial and small business education program to provide experiential training for post-9/11 veterans with disabilities, and Veterans United Home Loans is assisting financially. Veterans will develop their competencies in entrepreneurial ventures. VU’s foundation, Veterans United Foundation, donated $450,000 to help launch the program. The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EVB) was founded in 2007 at the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University.
Midway receives Quality Award
MidwayUSA received the 2015 Missouri Quality Award from the Excellence in Missouri Foundation. MidwayUSA was one of four recipients of the award. The Missouri Quality Award is presented annually to high-performing, Missouri-based businesses. MidwayUSA received the award in 2008 as well.
Loop Buries Lines
The Loop Community Improvement District announced the undergrounding of utility lines at Parkade and Madison was completed when city crews removed the wooden poles that once held overhead phone, cable and power lines. The city will eventually bury distribution lines along the entire Business Loop.
Landmark Bank
Landmark Bank recently celebrated the bank’s 150th anniversary. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency presented the bank with a commemorative certificate of the event. Landmark Bank was chartered in 1865, just three months after the end of the Civil War, and was called Exchange National Bank at the time. Landmark is one of the oldest nationally chartered banks west of the Mississippi River. The bank has more than $2.2 billion in assets, with 42 locations in 28 communities across three states.
Visionworks receives awards
Visionworks Marketing Group received two awards from the Academy of Interactive Visual Arts, an international competition. The two Davey Awards were for work on behalf of the Missouri Department of Transportation. The ad campaign focused on drunk driving prevention throughout the St. Louis area.
Columbia College launches eSports
Columbia College will introduce competitive video games, or eSports, next fall, offering scholarships to student gamers. Two teams of five players will play League of Legends, the most popular video game in the world. The teams will compete in the Collegiate Star League. The school will also renovate a building on Rangeline Street into a space for gamers to play in by early 2016. CBT