Cheers to Butler businessman Joe Gray, recipient of this year’s William A. Morgan Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and to Butler County Community College, winner of the 2013 Chamber Champion Award, during Wednesday’s Butler County Chamber of Commerce’s annual Celebrate Business dinner.

The awards honor an individual and an organization each year for their efforts to transform the county for the better through development and opportunity.

About 260 people were on hand at the Robert M. Smith Student Center of Slippery Rock University, where Gray was honored for his extensive involvement in the revitalization of downtown Butler as well as for his volunteer work with a number of community and municipal groups.

The college was honored for providing not only an affordable postsecondary educational option, but also for pumping an estimated $16.2 million a year into the county’s economy through payroll and operations spending.

Congratulations to Gray and to BC3 for meaningful contributions that enhance our quality of life.

Cheer Raise a welcome-home cheer to the Rev. Barry Dawson and his wife, Shelly, who take a break this week from their far-flung missionary career to revisit the Butler church where Dawson pastored — and the couple married — nearly 30 years ago.The Dawsons return to Hill United Presbyterian on Sunday to give a presentation on the Presbyterian Church mission in Southeast Asia, their next mission assignment.From Bangkok, Rev. Dawson will have regional responsibilities for Presbyterian mission partnerships in nine countries: Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.Between Butler and Bangkok, the Dawsons have lived and worked in Delaware, Montana, South Dakota, the Netherlands, Paris, Tokyo and the Sultanate of Oman.That’s a head-spinning itinerary, even before considering they raised three children along the way.Dawson will speak during the 10:30 a.m. worship service at Hill United Presbyterian, 501 Second St., where he resigned as co-pastor in 1985.It should be a lively homecoming, both for the visitors and their hosts. No doubt everyone will be looking for what has changed and what has stayed the same — and to hear how a little part of Butler has spread the light of evangelism to so many corners of the world.

JeerJeers to the career criminal who took advantage last May of a Prospect-area woman who was selling her 1989 Mercedes-Benz.Police say James E. Kaye, 52, of Lycoming County, took the woman’s car for a test drive and never came back.The law caught up with Kaye this week. He is in Butler County Prison on $50,000 bail after his extradition from West Virginia, where authorities had earlier nabbed him for drunken driving — in another stolen vehicle. District Judge Sue Haggerty on Tuesday arraigned Kaye on robbery of a vehicle, theft and two counts of receiving stolen property, all felonies.It wasn’t hard for police to identify the suspect. His victim provided a good description of the thief — and she provided something even better: Kaye’s cell phone number.Kaye has a long rap sheet. He showed up last May for that test drive in a $30,000 Mack truck, which also had been reported stolen. He has prior convictions for burglary, theft, fleeing or attempting to elude police, drug possession and driving under the influence. He was wanted on warrants for violating his parole in connection with unrelated criminal cases in Lycoming County.It’s good advice to be careful with whom you do business.—T.A.H.