A class of six outstanding figures, three deceased, three living, were inducted Thursday night as the seventh annual Indiana County Business Hall of Fame class by the Indiana County Chamber of Commerce at the Indiana Country Club.
“Indiana County is a special place,” Diamond Drugs Inc. owner Mark Zilner said as he accepted one of the honors.
Zilner, the son of pharmacists in Indiana, has overseen the growth of his parents’ business since joining at age 24 in 1991, and turning Diamond into Indiana County’s third-largest employer and a dominant force in national institutional pharmacy service.
He was honored along with the late James Leroy “Red” Douds, Rose P. Reschini and James Maitland Stewart, and the still very much alive Jack Delaney and Louis Tate.
Delaney said a past Business Hall of Fame inductee, the late Cecil Spadafora (class of 2017), started him on his way to more than 50 years in the automobile business, including dealerships in Indiana, Greensburg, White Township and State College, and a series of opportunities to support the Indiana community, from sponsorship of the Northern Appalachian Folk Festival to $100,000 in donations to Hopeful Hearts, a children’s grief support program run by the Visiting Nurse Association of Indiana County.
There was humor in the speeches reacting to being honored. Douds of Plumville Lead Designer Lori Gradwell teased brother Todd Brice, each among the grandchildren of Douds, saying “Todd was his favorite.”
She honored her grandfather, a Plumville native who with his wife, Martha, established an appliance sales shop near his dad’s store in the northern Indiana County borough, and from there expanded into furniture and carpeting, businesses that continued past his death in 1991 in Plumville and Greensburg.
Elaine Judge also mixed humor and family memories in recalling her mother, founder of the still family-owned Reschini Group insurance business, while Tate recalled family ties that helped establish restaurants in Clymer and DuBois.
Tate honored his parents William and Barbara, as well as brother and partner Ed, in a career that began with the family-owned supermarket in Clymer, then took off when he purchased Angie’s Bar in 1984. It is a career that also has involved civic involvement, as current president of Clymer Borough Council, and with efforts that spurred completion of a memorial Tate Park along Sherman Street in Clymer.
The last honoree of the night was the “chairman’s choice” of Indiana-native actor and war hero Stewart, whose daughter Kelly Stewart Harcourt planned to address live at the Indiana Country Club, but instead had to speak on a videotape because of a death in her family.
She said all of her father’s movies “have a bit of Indiana in them.”
Janie McKirgan, president and executive director of the downtown Indiana museum dedicated to Stewart’s memory, then came out after the recorded presentation and accepted the award on behalf of Stewart’s family.
The Business Hall of Fame is chosen by an eight-member committee chaired by Stephen Drahnak and including Chamber President Mark Hilliard and members John Busovicki, Mike Donnelly, Bob Kane, Bob Marcus, Greg Sipos and Jim Wiley.
Those chosen were selected from lists of living and deceased nominees.
Nomination criteria covers “individuals who have made outstanding contributions as a business leader significantly impacting Indiana County.”
It gives “the preponderance of weight … to accomplishments such as starting and building a business, and leading an established business to significantly greater achievements.”
Also stressed: A need for individuals who “displayed/displays the highest level of ethics in their business dealings.”
Also: “The individual must have been a resident of Indiana County at some point of their career.”
The chamber said pictures of Thursday night’s event would be posted on the chamber’s Facebook page.
