Mondee Tilley/The News
Dennis Lowe, board chairman of the Greater Mount Airy Chamber of Commerce, presents the 2012 Administrative Professional of the Year to Nicki Brame Tuesday at Cross Creek Country Club.
Mondee Tilley/The News
Traci Hamilton plays a red M&M that is showing off her moves to get a job at Workforce Carolina during a commercial in the Minute to Win It show at the Greater Mount Airy Chamber of Commerce’s annual professional’s luncheon.
Mondee Tilley/The News
Chamber Ambassador Amy Casstevens, left, and Sara Scott play a game called Junk in the Trunk during Minute to Win It at the annual administrative professional’s luncheon.
Mondee Tilley/The News
Roger Cramer and Sandy Griswold play Johnny Applestack during Minute to Win It at the Chamber’s luncheon yesterday. They tried to stack four apples in order to win.
Mondee Tilley
Staff Reporter
At this year’s Greater Mount Airy Chamber of Commerce’s Administrative Professional’s Day luncheon, not only was a good time had by all as the chamber ambassadors kept the crowd laughing, but Nicki Brame received the honor of being the Administrative Professional of the Year.
Brame was nominated by Mayor Deborah Cochran. Brame is the city’s clerk and works in the city’s administrative office.
At the luncheon, the honoree learned she had won after a description of their accomplishments was given to the crowd.
Dennis Lowe, the chamber’s board chairman, presented the award to Brame.
“The 2012 Administrative Professional of the Year winner does all the things you would expect, she manages records, she does word processing, she answers phones and serves customers, and as you would expect, she does those things very well. But it’s the extra things she does that make her a role model and a mentor,” said Lowe.
Cochran wrote that even though Brame has a chronic illness, she takes her medicine and comes to work even when she doesn’t feel well.
Brame has been a member of the Mount Airy Junior Women’s Club. She has been a member of and has chaired the Mount Airy March of Dimes Walk team. She is a member of a Cystic Fibrosis organization Winston-Salem.
When Brame accepted the award, the said she as speechless.
“I want to the thank the mayor and the city manager. I work with a wonderful bunch,” said Brame.
Lowe also told the crowd, which mostly included administrative professionals, that because they were there, their employers value them.
“What you do contributes to the success of your companies. Thank you. You are a valuable part of our community,” said Lowe.
He also thanked the Chamber Ambassadors for their work putting on the program Wednesday.
“You have worked so hard on this event. You put a good face on our chamber,” said Lowe.
The presentation by the Chamber Ambassadors this year was a game of “Minute to Win It.” Scott Kniskern was the emcee for the performance.
In the first game, called Glass Road Trucker, Gary Bowman and Andrea O’Neal were asked to stand empty bottles of Shelton wine upside down and then try to blow a ping pong ball across the bottoms of the bottles into a water pitcher. Unfortunately, neither was successful.
The second game, called Caddy Shack, Cross Creek Golf Pro Chris Wright and Alan Burton had 60 seconds to stack three golf balls. Again, no one came out the winner.
In the next game, called Ready Spaghetti, a team of Traci Hamilton and Kay Marcaccio took on a team of Misty Utt and Erica Johnson to see which team could pick up a soda can by the pull tab with a piece of spaghetti in their mouths and then walk the cans down to the end of the table. The teams were supposed to move four cans, but it proved impossible to do in 60 seconds.
In the game Johnny Applestack, Roger Cramer and Sandy Griswold tried to see if they could stack up four apples. While Griswold came close, she missed it by a few seconds.
In the game Nose Dive, Ashley Lancaster and Marsha Wagoner had to pick up cotton balls with Vasoline on their noses and move five of them to a container on the other side of the table. Lancaster came out the winner of that game.
In the game Yank Me, Lenise Lynch was pitted against Mary Hutson to see if they could stack four Solo cups with index cards in between, then yank the cards out so that the cups stacked on themselves. Neither was able to able to complete the task.
In the game Elephant March, Steven McRae and Amy Casstevens were asked to knock down mostly filled 2-liter bottles using only a tennis ball that was in the bottom of a pair of pantyhose they wore on their heads. McRae was declared the winner, however, both completed the task in less than 60 seconds.
The crowd really seemed to get a kick out of the game Face the Cookie that pitted husband and wife, Angela and Randy Shur, against each other to see who could get a cookie from the top of their heads to their mouth the fastest. Randy easily won by using his tongue to guide the cookie.
The game Junk in the Truck pitted Amy Casstevens and Sara Scott against each other to see who could shake all of the ping pong balls out of a tissue boxed that was tied to their backsides. Scott won in seconds.
During the Wreath Rally game, Sandy Hurley and her partner, whose identity was not known, and Tasha Mason and Allison Golding had to get a wreath off of a hat rack and transfer it to their partners. The other person had to hang it back on the bottom of the rack as many times as possible. Mason and Golding were declared the winners.
In a game of Paper Airplanes, Sandy Hurley and Denise Adkins had to make paper airlines out of newsprint and fly them through hoops, unfortunately, neither had a plane to go through the hoop.
In the last game of the day, Dash and Dress, Kniskern competed against Brame to see who could run a course while putting on items of clothing. Brame was declared the winner.
Between games, those who were sponsors for the event got commercials that were acted out by the Chamber Ambassadors.
Ambassador Dr. Leslie Stoklosa pretended to be a teenager who was a driving and texting nightmare for an Allstate commercial. Tonda Philips played the role of the voice-over person for the commercial. Stoklosa’s act gained many laughs from the crowd.
Glen Coleman also did a spot for Allstate while pretending to be a distracting young woman runner dressed in a ink running outfit who caused a driver to wreck. Coleman got big laughs from the crowd for his part of the commercial.
Hurley also did a commercial for Allstate, pretending to be a phone attendant who wasn’t doing a great job with customer service. She got big chuckles from the crowd as well.
For Workforce Carolina’s commercial, Traci Hamilton, who was dressed as a red M&M, came in for a job interview with Saroya Ceasar of Workforce Carolina. Hamilton stole the show when she started dancing around on the stage.
During the Mid-Atlantic Lawn Service commercial, Joan Vaughn, Mary Hutson and Gary Bowman all acted like rappers and rapped a song about the services the company offers. The gang had the crowd howling with laughter.
At the end of the program, Coleman thanked all of the event’s sponsors for making the luncheon possible.
Previous winners of the Administrative Professionals of the Year include: Brenda Goad, with Surry Telephone/Internet in 2004; Linda Williams of Northern Hospital of Surry County in 2005; Farrah Davis with John S. Clark in 2006; Mary Walker White of Surry Community College in 2007; Teresa Montgomery of Surry Community College in 2008; Susan Johnson of East Surry High School in 2009; Shirley Perkins of Haynes Strand and Company in 2010; and Kay Marcaccio of WorkForce Carolina in 2011.
Reach Mondee Tilley at mtilley@heartlandpublications.com or at 719-1930.
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