2021 Annual Meeting Recap

Standing Room Only!

The Southern’s 98th Annual Meeting was held at The Grand Hotel in beautiful Point Clear, Alabama. It was another great week of catching up with friends, conducting business, gaining new perspectives, and enjoying this beautiful bayside town. This year for our Meetings with a Mission initiative, we partnered with the Prodisee Pantry. We are proud to announce that we collected over $3,000 in cash (in addition to a $1,000 check from The Southern). Thank you to everyone who supported this great cause!

Our Southern Annual Golf Tournament provided a great day for networking with customers and prospects, as well as some friendly competition. This year it was held at the Grand Hotel’s Lakeview Golf Course. Thank you to our sponsor ITG Brands for their continued support of this event and The Southern.

It was standing room only for this year’s education sessions. Terry McKenna kicked off our Education Sessions by sharing with attendees how to become a high-performance organization. Next, Scott McPherson, Core-Mark, facilitated a panel discussion with Matthew Domingo, Senior Director External Relations – trade marketing for Reynolds Marketing Services Company, and Slaton Whatley, who currently oversees Whatley Convenience Stores as Director of Operations. Immediately following this standing room only panel discussion, Joey Jones, Combat-wounded Staff Sergeant (Ret.), shared with everyone during our General Session how he turned a traumatic, life-changing disability into a personal mission to improve the lives of all veterans.

This year’s Ten-2-Profit was an overwhelming success. With over 650 individual meetings occurring during this event, the room was a-buzz with excitement before, during and after. The House of “Deals” on Friday was a great way to end this very busy week. A tropical storm blew in late Friday that prevented us from ending the week with a boat tour of Mobile Bay.

None of this would be possible without the continued support of all of our sponsors. We salute them for their commitment to The Southern each and every year. n

2021 SPONSORS

Altria Group Distribution Company Burdette Beckmann Creative Data Research Dot Foods The Hershey Company ITG Brands

Jack Link’s Protein Snacks Lil’ Drug Store Matrix Brokerage National Tobacco Co. ProCat Distribution Technologies Republic Brands Reynolds SAWD Education Fund Smokey Mountain Snuff Swedish Match Swisher International