Littleton Area Chamber’s annual celebration

Chamber celebrates “Winds of Change” at Omni Mt Washington Hotel

This past Friday the Littleton Area Chamber of Commerce celebrated with businesses in the North Country at its 96th annual dinner. The celebration honored the 2107 Student of the Year, Citizen(s) of the Year and Volunteer of the Year. Outgoing President Carrie Gendreau and incoming President Tricia Fryman shared the podium for a night that was filled with awards and honored guests. Josh Judge, from Manchester’s WMUR’s weather team was the keynote speaker for the evening. His enjoyable anecdotes of life as a weather man were both fun, and informative.

The first portion of the evening, the Conservatory hosted a cocktail hour with guest musicians Laurie and Jimmy Anan performing live acoustic music for the crowd. Outside of the Grand ballroom rows of tables greeted guests with a variety of raffle awards; books, gift certificates, food items, and lift passes were all available for the taking–provided you held the winning raffle ticket.

Celebration in style

After the social hour, The Grand Ballroom of the Mount Washington Resort held the majority of the evening’s events. The Chamber board held minimal business at the outset of the event. They passed the 2018 budget and elected officers and directors for the new year. Craig Clemmer, The Director of Sales and marketing for Omni Mt Washington, greeted the room with a smile. He welcomed the folks of Littleton and equated the evening to having “the neighbors over for dinner.”

As the evening continued on, Meteorologist Josh Judge shared with everyone some behind the scenes realities of being a weatherman in New England. Through a variety of humorous tales he educated and entertained the audience about the difficulties of predicting the future. He wove different stories of his experiences as a weatherman around the central theme of the evening; The Winds of Change… The Wave of the future.

2017 Awards presentations

Following the Keynote speaker, the 2017 awards were presented. Vanessa Sandvil and Jennifer Carbonnau of Littleton High School presented Ms. Riley Clark the award of 2017 Student of the year. Vanessa commented that the actions and hard work of Riley are “not done to simply to occupy space on her resume. It is done with a cheerful heart, and the desire to improve the lives of those around her.” The recognition award has been given by the Chamber annually since 2002. The award, which is sponsored by the Eames Family and given to a Senior at Littleton High School who is “an active participant in his/her community, displays a desire to learn through academic performance while serving as a role model for other students, and is highly respected by faculty and peers.”

In addition to the Student of the year, the Chamber also presented the 2nd annual George and Janice Kirk Volunteer of the Year award for 2017. Carmen Menard from Passumpsic Savings Bank honored Robert Muh by presenting him, and thanking his wife Alice, with the award. Carmen shared that Robert has served as a community volunteer for years offering himself to a variety of different causes including the Chamber board, serving our country in the Military, President of the Littleton Rotary Club, The Mayhew Board, and the Grafton County Senior Citizen’s Council. She went on to say that ” [Robert] has many skills and talents. [He] is humble, and you will always hear this person praising others.”

2017 Citizens of the year – Joe, Ron and Herb Lahout

After the presentation of the Volunteer award, Dave Harkless presented the 2017 Citizen of the Year award to the Lahout brothers; Joe Jr., Ron and Herb. Dave discussed how he met the Lahout family nearly 30 years ago, talking about their integral role within the community. Through Lahout’s Ski Shop, the brothers recently worked with Dave to assist in the re-opening of Mt. Eustis Ski Hill. however, this was the most recent on a long list for this gentlemen.

Dave continued on to share that “All three brothers have been instrumental in countless civic projects throughout this town for many years. Each has played a part in various committees to renovate the high school and the jr. high, projects at Remich Park, Habitat for Humanity, the Lakeway ski and afterschool programs, soccer, tennis, and any other activities their kids were involved with.”

The entire celebration dinner is available for streaming below: