Greetings and may I be the first to wish a happy holiday season to you, our readers. As we have finally passed Halloween, the countdown to Thanksgiving and Christmas has officially begun! 

I’m sure that by this issue’s release on Nov. 1, the Christmas music has already begun to be played, Christmas trees will be in place, all of the fall decor will be on mega clearance and all of the Halloween candy will be cleared from the shelves, but before all of that we are ramping up to 2024’s Health Care Heroes! 

As we begin to say goodbye to yet another year, I hope you will take the time to say hello to some of our Health Care Heroes finalists who we are excited to present to you in this issue. 

This year, I got to be present for the judging and I can tell you it was hard to narrow down our finalists to only three per category. We had a wide selection of judges from different healthcare providers in our area, and together they made some solid cases for the finalists featured in these pages. 

Our outside judging panel worked diligently to choose the finalists and ultimately the winners in each of the nine categories while remaining fair and objective. They disclosed any potential conflicts of interest, and did their best to choose who they believed were the best finalists and winners for the awards.

It certainly was no cake walk, as we all had to consider over 60 well-deserving nominees submitted for 2024! 

We are looking forward to bringing the event back for a second year following the outpouring of support and enthusiasm from last year’s attendees. As of this issue’s publishing, we would like to formally invite the community to join us at our Health Care Heroes Awards ceremony on Nov. 7 at the Cape Fear Botanical Garden Ralph and Linda Huff Orangery. The event will begin at 5:30 p.m. with a cocktail hour. Cape Fear Botanical Garden will be serving beer and wine to guests. Dinner will be a buffet provided by Two Brothers Catering and the ceremony will follow shortly after. 

Tickets are limited but available for purchase at $75 each. Secure your seat by going to www.fayettevillehcheroes.com. 

We hope you enjoy this issue featuring the latest updates on the Methodist University Cape Fear Valley Health School of Medicine, the two brand new helipads now operational on top of Cape Fear Valley Health’s main campus located on Owen Drive and one of the area’s largest events is gearing up to serve the community for Thanksgiving thanks to Epicenter Church in Fayetteville.

Happy reading!