The professional achievements and legacies of service to the greater Hattiesburg area have earned two local citizens what is considered the most prestigious recognition the community can bestow.
On Thursday, Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. at Hattiesburg’s Lake Terrace Convention Center, local businessman and attorney Abb Payne and retired U.S. Army Col. Sheila Varnado will be presented The Hub Award at a banquet and award ceremony.
The Hub Award recognizes individuals annually who make outstanding contributions to the local community and demonstrate a commitment to excellence and dedication to the public good. Proceeds from support of The Hub Award program produce scholarship funds, benefitting students attending The University of Southern Mississippi and William Carey University through the Greater Pinebelt Community Foundation’s Hub Award Endowment.
“Abb Payne and Sheila Varnado are yet another pair of outstanding choices for The Hub Award,” said USM President Emeritus Dr. Aubrey K. Lucas, who serves on The Hub Award committee. “These two individuals have given, and continue to give, so much of their time and energy to help make our community the wonderful place it is to live, work and raise a family, and we’re thrilled to honor them in this way.”
ABB PAYNE
A Hattiesburg native and philanthropic entrepreneur, Payne is founder and CEO of the Payne Companies, a management company for its own and other entrepreneurial endeavors. Payne is also CEO and Founder of Wilford Capital, a company dedicated to creating high performing and rapidly growing businesses across diverse sectors of the economy. Through PayneCo and Wilford Capital, Payne owns or co-owns and manages home health, hospice, and private duty companies, regional specialty pharmacy operations, and assisted living facilities and senior communities throughout the United States. He also manages and oversees nationwide hotel operations, boutique lifestyle properties, and a large portfolio of Class A office spaces. Additionally, Payne invests in and advises promising tech companies that are already changing lives and the way people do business.
“As a very proud native of Hattiesburg, being awarded the prestigious Hub Award is one of the great honors of my life,” Payne said. “To be recognized by so many that I admire for contributions I’ve made to my own hometown really means the world to me. It has been my honor to try to help the Greater Pine Belt in any way that I can.”
Payne served as president and CEO of Camellia Healthcare from 2002 until 2018, when the company was sold to Encompass Health (NYSE: EHC), the nation’s fourth-largest provider of post-acute healthcare services. In that role, Payne grew the company to more than 1,400 employees and 40 locations across Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and Tennessee. He is particularly proud to have founded Camellia’s Hospice program, taking care of thousands of end-of-life patients across hundreds of counties in the South.
Soon after the sale of Camellia, Payne co-founded, managed, and was the largest investor in Abilis Health, Tennessee’s largest privately owned home health and private duty company until its very recent sale to Walgreens (NASDAQ: WBA). Payne is also the founder of InfusionPlus, ranked by Inc. Magazine as the ninth-fastest growing healthcare company in the U.S. and one of Mississippi’s “Best Places to Work” for 10 years in a row by Mississippi Business Journal.
A licensed attorney in Mississippi, Florida, and the District of Columbia, Payne is active in dozens of Opportunity Zone projects throughout the United States (through Wilford Capital) and is a major investor and current board member in several venture technology companies.
A graduate of the University of Mississippi with a degree in managerial finance, Payne currently serves on the board of directors of the University of Mississippi Foundation and is a judge for the university’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s annual “Shark Tank” competition. Recently, Payne and his wife Jennifer created and funded the Payne Esports Arena and Scholarship Endowment to further STEM learning at the University of Mississippi. Known as the LanSharks, the Ole Miss Esports Program is the largest student program on campus. Jennifer and Abb are also Vaught Society members, and the Ole Miss Basketball Team’s “Pavilion” street entrance is named for the Payne Family.
A joint Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration graduate of Florida State University (FSU), Payne serves on the FSU College of Law Board of Visitors. Earlier this year, FSU named Payne’s InfusionPlus company to its “Seminole 100” Fastest Growing Seminole-owned Businesses.
The Payne family are also very proud of its relationship and service to the University of Southern Mississippi (USM). Abb Payne is honored to have been on the USM Foundation Executive Board for many years and the Colleges of Nursing, Health, and Business Advisory Boards. Currently, he serves as treasurer of the USM Athletics Board of Directors. Additionally, the Payne family are proud, longtime members of the Circle of Champions. Recently, Payne was named the 2021 “Friend of Southern Miss” by the USM Alumni Association.
Committed to seeing the Mississippi business community thrive, Payne is a Past Chairman of the Area Development Partnership (ADP), having served on its executive board for several years. More recently, Payne served as the campaign chairman for the ADP’s very successful “Forward Together” Campaign. He is a longtime member of the Trustmark Bank Advisory Board, a Supreme Court-nominated past member of the Board of Bar Admissions, and a Board Member of the new Mississippi Aquarium.
Payne has been awarded Mississippi’s Regional Tree Farmer of the Year Award by the Mississippi Forestry Association and has been named the Forrest/Lamar Tree Farmer of the Year twice. He is an active member of the Mississippi Cattleman’s Association and is proud of his nesting bald eagles that reside on the Payne Farm in nearby Lamar County.
A proud graduate of Hattiesburg High School, Payne was inducted into the inaugural class of the Hattiesburg Public School District Hall of Fame. A member of Boy Scouts of America in his youth, he earned the organization’s highest rank, Eagle Scout; he has given both financially and philanthropically to the Pine Burr Area Chapter of the Boy Scouts for many years, recently serving as Troop 93 Pack Master for two years.
Payne is a Past Mississippi Chairman of the Young President’s Organization (YPO) and is Chair-elect of the Southern 7 Chapter of YPO, the largest YPO Chapter in the world (covering the Southeastern US). In this role, Payne will be the very first Mississippian to serve as Chapter Chair in the history of the organization.
Abb and Jennifer Payne are the proud parents of Ford (10), Arden (8), and Duke (3).
SHELIA VARNADO
*Col. Varnado retired from the U.S. Army after completing a 27-year active-duty career in January 2004. Her leadership roles during her military career included command of integrated, male, and female, Army units on four different occasions. Her culminating position in the Army prior to her retirement was G1, Third Army, headquartered at Fort McPherson in Atlanta, Georgia. After the attack of 9/11, she deployed with the unit to Camp Doha, Kuwait where she served as the director of personnel (human resources) for the Coalition Forces. Col. Varnado was triple hatted as the Third Army G1, the Army Central Command G1 and the Coalition Forces C1. She was responsible for strength accounting for more than 300,000 coalition forces, casualty reporting, various other wartime requirements and reporting daily from the theater of operation to U.S. Central Command and the Pentagon.
Col. Varnado received degrees from Ohio University and Syracuse University. She is a graduate of the Air War College, Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, and “Achieving Excellence in Community Development” through NeighborWorks of America and The Kennedy School of Executive Education at Harvard University. Col. Varnado was conferred the Doctorate of Humane Letters from William Carey University on May 19, 2018, in recognition of her sustained leadership and community service in the greater Hattiesburg community.
Varnado said she feels “honored, blessed, surprised and grateful” to be named a recipient of The Hub Award.
“I feel honored because I know the significance of being recognized by community leaders with this award; it is the premier and highest award in the Hattiesburg community,” Varnado continued. “You cannot apply for it or be interviewed for it, it’s like grace. It can only be bestowed upon you.
“I feel blessed because I know there are others who serve this community who are equally as deserving and perhaps even more so than myself; I feel surprised because this is not an award that I ever imaged that I would be considered for, much less be selected to receive. And I feel grateful because I view it as a gift from God, delivered through the hands of the angels on the selection committee.
“I believe God is saying, well done, my good and faithful servant, and I am grateful.”
Her professional work, after the military, includes with the United Way of Southeast Mississippi beginning in January 2006, after Hurricane Katrina, to develop and manage a Long-Term Recovery program. From March 2008 to January 2014, she served as the executive director of R3SM (Recover, Rebuild, Restore Southeast Mississippi), a 501c3 non-profit agency. Varnado was the catalyst for the creation of R3SM by creating a network of volunteers consisting of community leaders, social service agencies, local governmental entities, civic clubs, emergency management officials, university students and faith-based disaster recovery organizations. R3SM helped hundreds of families in the Pine Belt recover after Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Isaac, and the tornado of 2013 by facilitating the rebuild and repair of many homes for these families.
Col. Varnado received the Spirit of Women’s – “Spirit in Action” National Award (sponsored by Forrest General Hospital), for her work with Hurricane Katrina recovery. In 2007 she was recognized by Lifetime Television for Women and Comcast Cable, in partnership with Wesley Medical Center, with the “Strong Women Award” in the leadership category in recognition of her superior leadership. Col. Varnado received the 2012 Rotary Club of Hattiesburg Sunrise’s: “Service above Self Citizen of the Year Award” and the 2012 City of Hattiesburg Veteran of the Year Award. She was named the 2018 Citizen of the Year by the Phi Rho Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Incorporated.
In 2013, she received the Historic Hattiesburg Downtown Association’s Leadership Award for her visionary leadership in the restoring and repurposing of a 100-year-old historic building in downtown Hattiesburg. The building was turned into a welcoming temporary residence for volunteers from the United States and Canada who come to the Pine Belt to serve others during and after a natural disaster. The Dr. Aubrey K. Lucas/Colonel Sheila W. Varnado Volunteer House was dedicated in March 2014. Through efforts started in 2013 under Varnado’s leadership, funds were obtained to retire the mortgage on the house in 2019. The Volunteer House, as it is known, is now owned, debt-free, by R3SM for its continued work in the greater Hattiesburg community as a legacy to Col. Varnado’s visionary boldness and dedicated civic stewardship.
In November 2018, Colonel Varnado was inducted into the Sonny G. Montgomery VA Medical Center, Wall of Honor, in Jackson. She is the only living woman veteran whose picture hangs on the Wall.
Col. Varnado currently serves with the following non-profit organizations: as president of the African American Military History Museum Committee at the Historic East 6th Street USO; chair, Hattiesburg Veteran of the Year Committee; as a board director on the Mississippi Humanities Council; and as an advisor to the Efficiency and Renewable Energy Program with the Gulf Coast Community Foundation in Gulfport. Col. Varnado is currently serving a two-year term as president of Theta Sigma Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., located in Hattiesburg.
In 2012, Varnado and her husband, retired Lt. Col. Frederick Varnado, founded “Leaders and Shakers,” a leader-development company. Through “Leaders and Shakers,” the Varnado couple is fulfilling a long-held dream of sharing their leadership expertise and knowledge with as many current and future leaders as possible. They have jointly presented leadership workshops and taught classes since 2012. Their clients include colleges and universities, professional trade organizations, churches, for-profit businesses, and community non-profit organizations.
Col. Varnado is a contributing author for Leadership Through the Eyes of Senior Military Women Leaders, in the Camouflaged Sisters book series. This Amazon award-winning book was voted number one in U.S. Military Veterans History, number one in U.S. Veterans History, number three in Military & Spies Biographies, and number five in Business Leadership. Her chapter entitled, “The Conversation” shares acquired leadership knowledge and wisdom from a senior leader’s perspective with a newly minted Army lieutenant as she begins her leadership journey.
The Varnados attend The First Missionary Baptist Church of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, where they both serve as ordained deacons and Sunday School teachers.
ABOUT THE HUB AWARD
Established in 1979, The Hub Award originated as “Bobby Chain Day,” with a group of community leaders honoring the contributions and service to the community by the late Bobby Chain, a prominent businessman and former mayor of the city who also served a term on the Board of Trustees for the State Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL). The honor continues annually as the HUB Award, recognizing individuals who followed Chain’s lead in bettering Hattiesburg and the quality of life of its citizens through their own achievements and commitment to service.
To reserve a seat for the 2021 Hub Award ceremony and banquet or contribute to the Hub Award endowment, contact the Greater Pinebelt Community Foundation at 601.583.6180.
