Perham Chamber honors Schornack, volunteers, and community leaders

David Schornack’s Hall of Fame recognition put a familiar Perham pattern on display: people identify a need, organize around it and leave behind changes the community keeps using. The Perham Area Chamber of Commerce honored Schornack alongside Dean Simpson, Jan Parta, Veronica Marpoe, Justine Anderson, PACC staff and Turtle Race volunteers in a night built around service and persistence.

The Chamber says its Choice Awards recognize businesses and individuals who have been exceptional in and for the community. Its Hall of Fame award is meant for sustained contributions over time, while the Leadership Award honors someone who has done an especially good job leading the community on a project or important issue. The Humanitarian Award is reserved for an individual or organization devoted to improving the physical or emotional welfare of the community.

That framework makes Schornack’s honor stand out. In a town the size of Perham, the people who shape daily life are often the ones who keep showing up for the unglamorous work, the kind that solves problems before they become bigger ones. A Hall of Fame award is more than a plaque on a wall. It is the chamber’s way of marking the people whose names become part of the town’s public memory.

The 2026 Chamber Choice Awards banquet was held Thursday, April 9, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at The Cactus in Perham. The event cost $38 and included a sit-down dinner. Nominations were collected in January, after the chamber opened the 2026 nomination period on Jan. 8 and accepted submissions through Feb. 15.

The Awards Committee selected the recipients, continuing a process the chamber has said runs annually. That tradition has already placed other familiar names in the record, including Chuck Hoifus, who won the Hall of Fame award in 2025, and Denise Schornack, who received the Hall of Fame award in 2024. Friends of the Perham Auditorium won the Leadership Award that same year.

This year’s list of honorees showed how much of Perham’s civic life depends on volunteers, organizers and steady hands. By recognizing Schornack, the chamber added another name to a local roll call that helps define who has built the community, and who still holds it together.