riday January 28 was the day of the annual awards banquet for Lamer's Bus Lines three Green Bay and De Pere terminals. The modest affair was held at the Marq, formerly The Apple Creek Inn at US 41 and County Road S. The party consists of drivers from the aforementioned terminals coming together for a few drinks before
R. Timothy Lade leans on the seats for a photo in his bus
A katandmick photo
dinner, a country style chicken dinner, and an awards ceremony after the meal. Along with the awards, Kevin Lamer's the manager of the company reads out ticket numbers his wife randomly picks out of a hat. The tickets can be redeemed for a door prize at the front table which is usually a token prize such as a hat or toy bus.
A great many turned out for the event with numbers upwards of 300 attending. After a quick drink at the bar the restless crowd did not have to be told to take their seats for dinner and they shuffled into the dining room long before serving began, in fact no dinner bell had to be rung as everyone had already taken their seat. The Kat and I sat with people from the East De Pere terminal and Tim Lade was seated with personnel from the East De Pere facility and to be proper they chose a location in the far eastern portion of the room.
The dinner was the consistent chicken dinner served at weddings but with some key components missing. The Marq as it is now known was purchased by Festival Foods I am told, and for those of you interested in whether there have been changes made I can assure you there have. The seating has been tightened up and everyone must be seated elbow to elbow. The chicken dinner that used to come with a multitude of side dishes has been trimmed just to the essentials. You now have to make do with stale hard rolls, and the whole table shares a small dish of veggies that feed about 3, and the cold slaw has apparently been scraped as was the jelled cranberry as there was none to be found at our table. The chicken, what you could get of it was the same great tasting fried chicken always served at Apple Creek. The dressing was very good and of course the instant potato's were consistent with what is served at every venue of this type.
Kevin Lamers
As the meal neared completion the wait staff hovered like vultures to snatch plates from the table and remove any food platters before anyone could think about putting another thing on their plate. When the staff ended the meal they brought out a tray of small flat deserts laden with sugar. If you were lucky you got coffee and you were ready for the awards ceremony.
Each terminal gave recognition to drivers that had perfect attendance for the year, the Kat and Peggy Pickett each got a certificate and a pin. Tim Lade did not qualify for the perfect attendance award. The managers from each terminal each took turns presenting their respective three big awards for the selected employees. The are the customer service award, the Carol Lamer's award, and the presidential award. A short introduction before each award was given by the De Pere managers to be followed by a lengthily story which droned on by the Green Bay terminal manager before her awards. In between the awards Kevin Lamer's one of the officers of the company gave out door prizes. Door prize winners were instructed to keep their ticket for the last drawings of the evening, the grand prizes.
At the end of the awards when the ceremony had concluded the drawings were held for the grand prizes, they were an e-book reader and a GPS navigation device. The reader was won by Stacey Rose and the GPS by Tim Lade.
