Norman, Rust among others honored by Cape Chamber

Cape Girardeau businessmen Earl Norman and Gary Rust were among the honorees at the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce’s 2019 Annual Dinner on Thursday night.

A capacity crowd of 850 chamber members and guests attended the event at the Drury Plaza Conference Center during which Norman received the chamber’s Rush H. Limbaugh Award and Rust was presented with the inaugural Drury Family Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award.

The dinner program also included award presentations to the chamber’s Ambassador of the Year and Small Business of the Year, as well recognitions of Ken Bateman and Kathy Bertrand, who chaired the chamber’s board of directors in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

“The Limbaugh award is bestowed to an area businessperson who has expended exceptional effort on behalf of the community for a sustained period of time,” Bertrand said as she introduced Norman as this year’s award recipient.

Norman is chairman and chief executive officer of Benton Hill Investment Co. He founded Health Services Corporation of America (HSCA) and has been involved in commercial real estate for many years

In presenting the award, Bertrand described Norman as someone who is “very passionate about the Cape Girardeau area” and has “spent countless hours and countless dollars to make long-lasting, positive impacts.”

When asked to describe Norman in one word, chamber president and CEO John Mehner said it’s impossible, choosing instead to use the terms “passionate, persistent and very generous.”

Rust, founder and chairman of Rust Communications (parent company of numerous media outlets including the Southeast Missourian), received the Drury Family Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award from Chuck Drury. The award, named in honor of Drury’s father, Charles, and his uncles Bob and Jim, was established this year to recognize someone for his or her entrepreneurial success.

Rust, Drury said, “is a gentleman whose life has paralleled and intersected with my father and uncles. They competed against each other in baseball as youths and at one point also competed in business. Many of us have enjoyed a front-row seat on his accomplishments and he has had a front-row seat on ours.”

Rust started his media career in 1967 when he left the family’s furniture business and purchased the weekly Bulletin newspaper in Cape Girardeau County, forerunner of the Bulletin-Journal, which had fewer than 1,500 subscribers. Today, Rust Communications owns and operates 19 daily newspapers, 25 weeklies and more than 100 websites and specialty publications in nine states with an annual reach of more than 10 million people across all platforms.

“Gary Rust exemplifies the kind of entrepreneur this award is meant to honor,” Drury said. “It is a great privilege to recognize this humble, hardworking leader as the inaugural recipient of this award.”

Coalter Insurance Group, represented by Laura Coalter-Parker and other members of the Coalter Insurance team, was named the chamber’s 2019 Small Business of the Year. In making the presentation, Bertrand said there were several highly-qualified businesses in the running for this year’s honor, which, she said, “provides a strong testament to the strength of our area’s businesses.”

Coalter Insurance, Bertrand said, “truly takes the time to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Greg Vaughn of Media Leaf LLC was named the chamber’s 2019 Ambassador of the Year, in recognition of the 38 chamber-hosted ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings he attended and the seven new chamber members he recruited in 2019. In addition, Brandy McIntire of Fox 23 and MY 49 TV/Compulse Digital Sales was recognized as the Ambassador of the Year for 2018.

Three area businesses also received recognition for achieving 50-year chamber membership milestones. They were Drury Land Development, Kohlfeld Distributing and Procter & Gamble Co.

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