Published: November 08, 2008 07:40 pm         

Newsmakers: Nov. 11, 2008

• D&D Management hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Oct. 25 in the front parking lot at 651 Springhill Road.

D&D is a fully insured and bonded cleaning company. It specializes in commercial and residential cleaning, as well as housekeeping, with a range of cleaning from shampooing and waxing floors, to window cleaning, to spring cleaning that clients can’t find time for.

Contact Sylvia Bault at s.bault@yahoo.com for more details.

• William Fields Jr., Erik Steffen and Jeff Higgs, all linemen at Norris Electric Cooperative in Newton, Ill., participated Oct. 24 in the statewide Lineman’s Safety Rodeo at Springfield, Ill.

The 11th annual event in Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield coincided with a series of courses designed to help electric line personnel improve their work skills in safe and efficient ways. Several electric suppliers joined the Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives and LLCC in co-sponsoring the event.

Line personnel from 12 Illinois electric cooperatives competed in five team events and two individual events. Team events included hurt man rescue, egg climb (linemen climbing a 30-foot pole with a raw egg in their mouths), Cutout Change, Transformer Banking and Practical Knot Tying.

• Four wines at White Owl Winery at Birds, Ill., recently received wine ratings and medals in the 2008 World Value Wine Challenge hosted by the Beverage Tasting Institute in Chicago. WOW’s Cherry Pie also was voted Best U.S. Sweet Fruit Wine. This wine received a 90-point rating, classified as “truly excellent in style and distinction” and a gold medal.

Other wines to receive awards in this competition included Sweet Liberty with an 88 point rating and silver medal. Spiced Pear received a rating of 85 points and a silver medal. And Snowy White received a rating of 84 points and a bronze medal.

The Beverage Tasting Institute is one of best-known international wine rating agencies in the world. The institute was founded in 1981 with the objective of producing fair and impartial wine reviews to assist consumers in their search for a quality wine.

White Owl, in southern Crawford County, Ill., also won two silver medals in the AWC Vienna International Wine Challenge in Vienna, Austria.

The two wines to win medals were Persimmon Solera, a sherry crafted completely from wild harvested Midwestern persimmons; and Grapefruit Spumante’, a sparking wine made from pink grapefruit.

The contest is the largest in Austria, with 300 wine experts and enologists this year judging nearly 8,000 wines from throughout the world.

The awards were presented Oct. 30 in Austria.

White Owl Winery is 10 miles north of Vincennes on the Illinois side of the Wabash River. For more details, visit whiteowlwinery.com.

• Regional Hospital has announced the appointment of Carolyn Hamilton as chief nursing officer. Hamilton has served as interim CNO since Oct. 1.

Hamilton brings more than 35 years of experience in nursing. She returned to Regional Hospital in 2005 as director of case management and educational services. Hamilton has progressed her career from receiving her licensed practical nurse designation in 1970, registered nurse license in 1988, BSN in 1999 and a master’s degree in business management in 2002.

Hamilton earned certification in case management from the ANCC and health care quality from the Health Care Quality Certification Board. Her clinical experience includes medical surgical, emergency, surgical nursing and physician office management. As director of cooperative project operations at Health Care Excel, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Indiana and Kentucky, she was awarded the designation of Kentucky Colonel by the governor of Kentucky for her efforts to improve the quality of health care for Medicare beneficiaries in the Commonwealth.