An easy way to measure the health and vibrancy of a business community is to take the pulse and check the vital signs of its chamber of commerce. Thankfully, Winchester and Clark County’s check-up comes back with a great prognosis of health.

This was on full display last week as nearly 300 people attended the Winchester-Clark County Chamber of Commerce’s annual awards banquet to make connections and celebrate some of the amazing businesses, organizations and individuals who make this community special.

We applaud the chamber for this event and all it does to connect business leaders and showcase its members.

With each being extremely worthy honorees, the recipients were:

— Downtown Business of the Year:  Leeds Center for the Arts

— Partner of the Year: Leggett & Platt

— Director of the Year: Cora Heffner

— Volunteer of the Year: Joyce Morton

— Nonprofit of the Year: Kiwanis

— Community Partner of the Year: Bluegrass Community & Technical College and Freedom Realty

— Citizen of the Year: Harry Enoch

— Business of the Year: WKTN 107.7 FM

We appreciate what each of these honorees do for Clark County.

Communities without strong chambers often lack in business-to-business communication and have very little connectivity with one another.

That isn’t the case here.

Director Cindy Banks, executive assistant extraordinaire Erika O’Brien and the entire board of directors deserve praise for all the work they do to benefit members and the entire business community.

The organization added more than 30 members in 2016 and has continued to grow this year.

The chamber continues to offer its twice weekly newsletter that does a great job of informing members about so many of the great things going on here. The organization also offers a variety of networking opportunities and business showcases through the chamber breakfasts and business after-hours events.

Exciting things are going on in Clark County, and the chamber certainly has earned its share of the accolades.