Coastal Point | Lednum honored with lighthouse award

Lednum honored with lighthouse award

By M. Patricia Titus
Staff Reporter



	Coastal Point • M. PATRICIA TITUS Wayne Lednum, left, receives the Lighthouse Award from Dale Bellinger.

The annual membership dinner of the Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce is a time for Chamber members to gather together for networking, a review of the year past for the Chamber and local business, discussion of the future direction of the business community and a plethora of delicious food.

But the event also serves as a venue to give a pat on the back to some of the stars among the Chamber’s membership — most notably each year the winner of the Lighthouse Award, the most prestigious award the Chamber presents.

The Lighthouse Award is a lifetime achievement award honoring an individual’s dedication to the community, as well as the Chamber, and on Sept. 29, the Chamber honored Wayne Lednum of Creative Concepts for such dedication.

In announcing the honor, Chamber Executive Director Karen McGrath noted Lednum’s past and ongoing efforts as a standout business owner and employer, citing particularly his support of local charities and generosity to his employees in buying them each a new mattress set after he found he deeply enjoyed his own new mattress.

Surrounded by friends and family at the Den at Bear Trap Dunes for the evening’s dinner, and seated across the table from past Lighthouse Award winner Hal Dukes, Lednum might have suspected that something special was in store for him that Friday evening.

Nonetheless, he was struck speechless by the award, simply rising to receive the diamond-studded gold lighthouse pin gifted to the award winner in recent years by Bellinger Jewelers and have his photograph taken before returning to his seat without a single word spoken.

Membership awards, nominated by the general membership, were also presented to outstanding members at the Sept. 29 event.

Coastal Point Publisher Susan Lyons accepted the Business Partner Award for the newspaper, which McGrath particularly cited for its donation of advertising space for Chamber and community events.

The Quality First Award was presented to The Blue Crab of Bethany Beach, which Chamber members noted for its superior service and food.

The Chamber Member of the Year was Kevin Lynch of Selbyville Pet & Garden, for his involvement with the organization. And Debbie Hudson of Preferred Mortgage Company was honored as the Chamber’s Ambassador of the Year for bringing in the most new members.

The Chamber’s membership now tops 800 members, reaching 812 prior to the annual dinner. Chamber staff also recently walked away with major awards from the national Chamber of Commerce.

Wode assumes presidency

The annual membership dinner also marked another changing of the guard at the Chamber, with the installation of new officers and board members for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

Outgoing President Tom Neville of Cottage Café handed over the gavel to new President Jean Wode of Tulip. Wode, while lamenting the public speaking involved in the role, said she was greatly looking forward to her year of leading the Chamber’s membership and working with both members and staff.

Wode said she was particularly interested in how the Chamber’s new partnership program between individual board members and staffers would benefit the Chamber, potentially getting board members more involved with the day-to-day duties of the award-winning Chamber staff and perhaps sparking new twists and additional growth to some of the Chamber’s annual events.

Also introduced Sept. 29 were incoming board President-elect Patti Grimes of Carl M. Freeman Communities; Vice President Jim Smith of Conectiv; and Secretary/Treasurer David Nilsson of David Nilsson CPA.

The new members of the Chamber’s board of directors are Jeff Baxter of Bethany Bytes; Kevin Brady of Comcast Spotlight; Kathy Castrovillo of Mercantile Peninsula; and Andy Lyons of Kornerstone Management.

Both of the Lyonses were featured in the dinner’s traditional retrospective slideshow – this year going beyond just the previous year’s events and extending some 30 years into the past, in honor of the Chamber’s 30th anniversary.

Familiar faces of Chamber members past and present flashed across the screen, marking the passage of time and the growth of the Chamber from less than 20 members to the burgeoning 800-plus member organization that exists today.

There were serious moments, as the faces of those who had left the community and departed this life were also shown. But there was also mirth, as McGrath noted the blackmail potential of some of the old photographs the Chamber staff had procured for the project, including those of a party in the 1980s where members had worn a variety of odd headgear.

Speaker encourages voter thought

Joining the Chamber members and staff for the Sept. 29 dinner was Edwin J. Feulner, best-selling author and president of the American Heritage Foundation. Feulner, the owner of a vacation home in Bethany Beach, was the keynote speaker for the dinner and joined in congratulating the night’s award winners.

Despite some controversy over Feulner’s selection because of some of the background and politics behind the American Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank and policy center, Feulner’s speech to Chamber members generally avoided traditional partisan politics.

Indeed, Feulner’s theme for the evening was to advise all those present to get involved as Election Day approaches and to give deep consideration and research to the choices they will make when pulling that lever on Nov. 7.

Feulner made no pretense as to his own conservative beliefs but laid out six principles from his book “Getting America Right: The True Conservative Values Our Nation Needs Today” that he said would serve Americans of all political persuasions in making decisions on the nation’s policies:

(1) Is it the government’s business?

(2) Does the measure promote self-reliance?

(3) Is it responsible?

(4) Does it make us more prosperous?

(5) Does it make us safer?

(6) Does it unify us?

Not taking a traditional party line, Feulner laid out his own differences with the Bush administration over issues such as the recent Medicare prescription plan, which he decried as expensive and wasteful. He also found fault with the nation’s massive tax code and what he said was a liberal point of view that government should function as a source of charity funded through taxes.

Moreover, Feulner said, the Bush administration had failed to live up to some of the core conservative values which conservative voters had supported in casting their ballots since the president was first elected in 2000, engendering further a trend toward big government that conservatives reject.

Feulner said, though, that revisions to the nation’s welfare system had been right on track, reducing the dependency of the poor on government and encouraging them to become contributing members of society instead.

He encouraged all those present at the event to consider the six questions laid out in his book before casting their ballots next month.

In addition to the thought-provoking lecture, guests at the event received favors and gifts from presenting sponsor Mediacom. The cocktail reception was sponsored by Bethany Club Tennis, and the dessert was sponsored by Dangerously Delicious Pies.