Thank you to those who nominated me and voted for me to win the Young Professional of the Year award at The Chamber Gala. Friday, April 26, was a date I will always remember. This award means a lot to me.

I have worked with the Fountain Hills Times for 23 years selling advertising as well as becoming the publisher over the past year and a half. I have met and worked with many of you over the years on projects or on an advertising campaign and I am thankful to have grown up and worked in a community like Fountain Hills.

I am working on implementing some new ideas that involves video for social media platforms as well as other ideas for video. These are ideas I have envisioned but have not really had the time to start it.

These new ideas will not affect the print products including the newspaper we have provided to the town over the years. Some have approached me about this after seeing the new pay wall we started for our website as well as seeing the video ads for a couple of businesses I placed on our Facebook page last week.

In every business you need to place new ideas to keep moving the company forward with the changing times. This company has been and continues to be successful as being your one stop shop for all your news of the community and marketing for your business.

In addition to reaching subscribers of the paper or through one of our publications you can now add video that we create for your social media platform. We will also place the video on our Facebook page which can be shared through the community on Facebook. We also have high traffic weekly on our website at fhtimes.com which we do offer video, digital ads and the online Marketplace.

My heart and nerves got the best of me when I walked up to receive the award but I was very honored and humbled. I want to again thank you all and I want to especially thank Scott and the Chamber. It’s an honor.

This past Sunday my family traveled up to Sedona to celebrate the life of a special person we lost a year ago. Sunday would have been his 68th birthday, and I miss him very much. This person is my Uncle Steve.

Steve was a quiet but very smart man who made a presence when he was in the room. It was a shock to all of us when he was taken away so fast on a Saturday afternoon.

Steve and I were so much alike and I was always reminded of that from others in my family. Steve would get up every day at 4 a.m. to work out and it showed and just weeks before his death he had a physical done in which his numbers showed he was in good health.

I don’t get up that early but I do like to work out and when we saw each other we used to talk about weight lifting and things like that. I took a long break from working out but got back into it a few years ago. The last time I saw Steve was exactly two weeks before his death on a Saturday.

When I saw him he made a comment about me losing weight and getting back to where I should be. I will never forget this comment. He put his hand on my shoulder as I was leaving and he said “Keep it up it looks like you’re getting back to where you should be.” This comment may not sound like much but if you knew the relationship I had with my uncle then you would know how much this comment meant to me.

We had his memorial in Sedona on a sacred ground called Amitabha Stupa & Peace Park. This was a chance for all of us to say goodbye to a man who meant so much to us. My Aunt Linda placed a brick down that will be at the Stupa forever. We all said a prayer for him as I am sure he was looking down with that big smile.

Steve i miss you but will always remember you. I am working my way to be that person you always known. Your last comment gives me that motivation to become that person. I am sure we will see each other again but until then thank you, Steve, for being such a great uncle.