2024 President of the Centralia Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, Rachel Wallace, was recognized at the “Love Our Community” Annual Banquet for her service to the chamber and her commitment to the Centralia community as the .

While accepting the award, Wallace gave the following speech:

“When I was asked to give remarks about my role as the President of the Board of Directors, my first thought was, ‘people are probably tired of hearing from me, so what am I going to talk about?’ But after thinking about it for a while, I wanted to discuss how much of our investments as business owners mean more than just money.

We are all here tonight because we are the people that care about the present and the future of Centralia and its many surrounding towns and municipalities. There are many of us in the room that have made monetary investments into our community, but what we do after that is the real investment.

I hope that I have been the type of investor that has set a good example of what we can do together. It takes a team to accomplish the goal of any city. It also takes passion, dedication against the naysayers, and a desire to be around after all of the accolades have died down. The best contribution we can make after money is our time and our attitudes. There are always going to be people that do not want you to succeed, you would rather bash success than appreciate the hard work that goes into it. It is our job as the backbone of this city to raise up the attitudes and the culture in the city of Centralia.

Our investment of time and participation is our greatest asset that we can contribute. A constant dedication to what the city has to offer, even if we don’t always agree with everyone or everything, we can change the perception and ensure the longterm success of the entire community. There will be disagreements about how money is spent, who is building or buying what, or perhaps what day this or that event occurs on. In the end, how we as the leaders approach these disagreements and continue to support the overall success of the city is what makes the difference.

You are all leaders; leaders of your community, your church, your business, your department, your family, and yourself. Anyone who shows the investment to those communities will pay off for all of us. The perception of success is different for everyone. May the future of Centralia be successful with the investments that we make in our daily lives, to the positive attitude and overall wellbeing of our community. The investment we make makes the changes that we decide. So, inspire community.”