Published: Monday, December 3, 2012 12:18 AM CST

The YankTON Challenge held its award ceremony at The Landing bar Saturday and honored those businesses participating in the annual weight-loss contest, as well as individuals that lost the most weight.

Christy Hauer, executive director of The Center and a chairperson on the Yankton Chamber of Commerce Healthcare Committee, said  a total of nearly 8,000 pounds has been lost by participants between both years the program has been in existence.

“We are really pleased with the progress of the YankTON Challenge event as a whole,” she said. “This year, even though total weight loss is down a little bit from where it was in 2011, we are still pleased with how the event went.”

Hauer said while there were some huge prizes the first year the event was held, this year the prizes were scaled down a bit based on the survey that was sent out at the end of the inaugural event.

“Last year we had six total prizes for participants, including top three weight losses in a few different categories,” she said. “This year, we have a total of 18 prizes, so we are really excited about that. Having more prizes allows more people, businesses and organizations that participated to be recognized.”

She added that the reception for the program has been terrific.

“The YankTON Challenge has been so well-received for how new of a program it has been,” Hauer said. “We tried to make it fun for businesses to participate in the event. We had some training for team coordinators and also wanted to make the program fun, interesting and challenging. We also had some free workshops and classes offered for those that were in the program to help keep them motivated to lose weight.”

Some of the classes that were offered included a free Zumba class and several Yoga programs as well.

Going forward, Hauer hopes to continue to build and expand the program . However, she said the challenge will not be offered in 2013, but will be back in 2014.

“We want to get more businesses involved and participating in the YankTON Challenge,” she said. “The goal of the program is to keep the workforce in Yankton healthy.”

Hauer added that she is grateful to the Chamber of Commerce for making this event possible and said it adds value for the businesses that are members of the Yankton Chamber.

“The members of the Chamber really did a good job helping put this event together,” she said. “It takes a total team effort to make this all possible, and it takes a lot of volunteers to make this happen.”

As part of the awards ceremony on Saturday, business team coordinators were recognized with certificates. In addition, several individuals and businesses that lost the most weight were recognized. Prizes included massages, gift cards, Chamber Bucks and memberships to local fitness centers.

Small business winners (1-24 employees) were:

• 3rd place: Losing a total of 52.8 pounds (4.05 percent body weight) — Bon Homme Electric

• 2nd place: Losing a total of 96 pounds (4.26 percent) — Riverfront Broadcasting

• 1st place: Losing a total of 139.8 pounds (5.31 percent) — Yankton Rexall Drug

Medium business winners  (25-199 employees) were:

• 3rd place: Losing a total of 225.8 pounds (3.14 percent) — Shurco

• 2nd place: Losing a total of 196 pounds (4.69 percent) — Sacred Heart Monastery

• 1st place: Losing a total of 346 pounds (5.45 percent) — Truxedo

Large business winners (more than 200 employees) were:

• 3rd place: Losing a total of 280.7 pounds (3 percent) — First National Bank of Omaha

• 2nd place: Losing a total of 148 pounds (4.34 percent) — HyVee

• 1st place: Losing a total of 248 pounds (4.65 percent) — Vishay Dale Electronics

Individual Winners were:

• 6th place: 11.7 percent body weight lost — Jan Anderson

• 5th place: 11.9 percent body weight lost — Phyllis Meier

• 4th place: 13 percent body weight lost — Tom Tacke

• 3rd place: 13.7 percent body weight lost — Kelly Kneifl

• 2nd place: 16.8 percent body weight lost — Jessi Stark

• 1st place: 24.6 percent body weight lost — Kristi Palecek

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal