Chamber opens nominations for 2026 annual awards in Oxford, Lafayette County

The Oxford-Lafayette County Chamber of Commerce is asking residents to look past the headlines and name the people and businesses that have quietly shaped Oxford and Lafayette County over the past year.

Its 2026 Annual Awards will recognize Large Business of the Year, Small Business of the Year, the Oxford/Lafayette Business Icon Award, Outstanding Service Award, Ambassador of the Year Award and Citizen of the Year, a lineup that reaches beyond commerce and into volunteer service, leadership and long-term community impact. The Chamber says the awards are presented at its Annual Meeting in May each year, making the program one of the county’s most visible annual measures of who is helping set the pace for local life.

Citizen of the Year remains the Chamber’s most established honor. The organization has recognized a Citizen of the Year every year since 1972, and its award page says the winner should have made a direct, lasting impact through volunteer service in Oxford, Lafayette County and the University of Mississippi community. Recent honorees include Jill Stevens in 2024, LaVera Hodges in 2023 and Dr. Jo Ann O’Quinn in 2022.

The nomination process is built to separate reputation from documentation. For Citizen of the Year, the Chamber requires a completed nomination form, a biography and letters of support, and says nominations are reviewed confidentially by the Awards Committee. The structure points to a program that is meant to reward visible, sustained service, not a one-time gesture or a polished public image.

The Chamber’s publicly posted materials describe it as a business organization with more than 800 members, a scale that helps explain why the awards carry weight across both the business community and civic life. In a county where local schools, neighborhoods, churches, nonprofit groups and storefronts all depend on overlapping networks of support, the annual awards have become a way to define which kinds of leadership matter most.

The 2026 Annual Meeting Luncheon is scheduled for Wednesday, May 27, 2026, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. CDT at the Inn at Ole Miss, 120 Alumni Drive in University, Mississippi. Tickets are $40 each, and tables of 10 are $450. Cannon Motors of Mississippi is the presenting sponsor.

For Oxford and Lafayette County, the nomination slate is more than a ceremonial list. It is a public ledger of the people and institutions residents believe are moving the community forward, whether by building businesses, serving quietly, or setting a standard others follow.