Most every company has one of ‘those’ employees. They’re the first to volunteer for after-work or Saturday events. They’re the ones who call the Marketing Department to say ‘I’ll help set up the banquet room for the Holiday party’ or ‘Count on me to work the fund-raiser for Pelotonia’ or ‘I can help at the Golf Outing – what do you need me to do?’. At Heartland Bank, Paula Brutchey, AVP Operations Manager, is one of ‘those’…..

The history of bluegrass music is traced back to British and Irish immigrants who arrived in Appalachia in the 18th century and brought with them the musical traditions of their homelands. Some 300 years later, bluegrass music is alive and well and being celebrated locally in Newark at the second annual Bluegrass on Main Street event this Saturday, August 29.

What started out as an effort to help a few local children’s charities in 1996 has blossomed into a full-fledged annual fundraising event that has been gaining momentum in each of the last 17 years. Since that first golf outing in 1996, when the Bank made a small donation to the Licking County 4H Horse Council to last year when five local charities selected by the Bank collected a total of $25,000, Heartland has made benevolent donations of almost $350,000. Former recipients of funds from the Charity Golf Classic include Big Brother & Sisters of Central Ohio, Ronald McDonald House, March of Dimes, the Buckeye Ranch Foundation and Junior Achievement, among many others.

Back in the late 1960s, Nancy Sinatra, the Fifth Dimension and Dionne Warwick all crooned their own version of the song Up, Up and Away with the following lyrics, “Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon? Would you like to glide in my beautiful balloon? We could float among the stars together, you and I. For we can fly, we can fly…..”