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The Greater Easley Chamber of Commerce hosted its 76th Annual Meeting & Awards Celebration on March 14 at Tri-County Technical College-Easley Campus. Sponsored by Truliant Federal Credit Union, the event honored several businesses and individuals for their leadership and community service. Among those awards, TU Engraving & Awards was honored as the 2024 Pillar of the Community, which honors a long-standing business that contributes to building a strong foundation for our Easley-Powdersville community and is highly respected as an important stakeholder in making our community resilient, vibrant and successful. Established in 1981, TU Engraving & Awards is a third-generation family-owned business which began as the brainchild of Bill Jones, who was operating a local sporting goods store and realized a need for a stand-alone trophy business. The store opened with a dining room table and two portable tables that displayed about 10 assorted styles of trophies. Engraving was done on a 1950’s stylus type engraver with only 3 sets of font styles. The first computer was purchased in the late 1980’s and engraving switched to a stamp method. In the early 90’s, the company purchased its first true engraving computer with software. Today, they operate with a diamond engraver, two laser engravers, and a sand blasting unit. In addition, their current offerings include state of the art graphic services, custom design options, and over 100,000 different font styles, as well as access to over 3,500 pages of products including trophies, plaques, glass & crystal, bronze, acrylic, clocks, and much more. Their specialty is creating custom awards, many of which are proprietary to the client. TU Engraving & Awards is not simply a retail business but also operates with a manufacturing aspect because every single award is hand-sewn. There is no “pass-through” merchandise as part of their business model. Every product is ordered basically as raw material, with all awards and trophies being personally assembled in their shop and produced with hand-cut, custom engraving. Originally, their customer base was local Little League sports teams and individuals. But today, it also encompasses local & national businesses, manufacturing facilities, schools, police & fire departments, golf courses, churches, hospitals, recreation departments, universities, municipalities, and professional offices. And they take pride in knowing their business is now creating awards for the 3rd and 4th generations of local families. Each year, they produce tens of thousands of awards. After 43 years at that volume, it’s safe to say that almost every award in our community is produced by this business. Whether you have received a business name badge, engraved name block for your desk, a service or achievement award....whether your child or grandchild has received a medal, trophy, academic award, or sports award....whether your business has ordered service or performance awards, signs, banners, or promotional products....whether you have needed engraving for a personal gift or family celebration. In all of these situations, you or your family has been served by this local business. Please join Greater Easley Chamber of Commerce in honoring TU Engraving & Awards as the 2024 Pillar of the Community recipient.