Our sister magazine, Central Illinois Business, runs a yearly Forty Under 40 event that features young, accomplished and philanthropic business professionals in our magazine. It’s a fun process and our staff enjoys it very much.

First, we open up nominations for the Forty Under 40 panel. We get nominations mostly through our link on the newspaper’s website. After we close the nominations we compile all of them into a book. We give that book to our judges. They peruse it for a week, and then our judges meet and decide on the entire panel. They also choose a Man of the Year, and a Woman of the Year from the panel of forty. We choose five judges that are not affiliated with News-Gazette Media, and who accomplished professionals in their own right. Their decision is final. We have nothing to do with that process whatsoever.

Central Illinois Business then spotlights these outstanding young business professionals in our October/November issue, which is totally dedicated to them. We have an awards luncheon where we celebrate the winners with their colleagues, friends and family. It’s a very rewarding day!

That’s where At Home in Central Illinois magazine comes in. We like to focus on events where locals are out and about in our “Be Seen on the Scene” feature. We thought why not feature those stellar Forty Under 40 individuals?

This year’s luncheon was held last October 6, 2016 at the Hilton Garden Inn, who puts on a great luncheon with us. Their staff, the food, and their amenities make it a wonderful event, and we sincerely thank them for all they have done to help support Central Illinois Business magazine.

Enjoy these pictures of the event. We have listed below the winners, in case you missed them in The News-Gazette or Central Illinois Business magazine.

If you know someone under the age of 40 who deserves recognition for their great leadership ability and dedication to community service, give them the recognition they deserve and nominate them for the panel. Go to The News-Gazette’s website, and follow the prompts at newsgazette.com.

Central Illinois Business magazine’s 2016 Forty Under 40 winners: Woman of the Year: Angi Franklin, principal of Jefferson Middle School in Champaign. Man of the Year: Justin Overstreet, senior audit manager for Martin, Hood, Friese & Associates, LLC, in Champaign. Our other winners: Rebecca Bedinger, Ippatsu Salon; Scott Burge, Farnsworth Group; Erica Cooper-Peyton, Urbana Park District; Scott Daigle, IntelliWheels; Brooke Didier Starks, Meyer Capel; Matt Duco, Spiros Law; Carly Froomkin Burak, Hillel; Victor Fuentes, El Toro; Justin Gensler, Illinois National Bank; Erin Grace, Young Life; Katie Harrell, UI Foundation; Zachary Hillard, Busey Wealth Management; Mike Ingram, WEFT; Josephine Kalipeni, Caring Across Generations; Natalie Kenny Marquez, City of Urbana; Chris Kloeppel, Champaign school board president; Jeremy Larson, Paris Union school district; Josh Laskowski, Stevie Jay Broadcasting; Charlee Lin, Busey Wealth Management; Callie Jo McFarland, City of Monticello; Kevin Monahan, president, Monahan Partners; Ashley Morgan, Community Blood Services; Ben Newell, Newell Instr./Build Equinox/Verde GSE; Thomas Nicol, PowerWorld Corporation; Ryan Pine, Advanced Ophthalmology; Denise Poindexter, University of Illinois; Jamie Ritter, FASS Inc.; Caty Roland, Urbana Park District; Sherri Rudicil, Prairie Center; Adam Siero, University of Illinois; Holly Smith, Holly Birch Photography; Brian Stark, The Andersons Inc.; Jamie Stevens, Community Choices; Joshua Stone, Human Kinetics; Marcus Truss, Children and Family Services; Angela Urban, CERL; Zach Wetherell, Coldwell Banker and Mark Whitsitt, Whitsitt & Associates.