DURHAM, N.H. - Harris Family Furniture with locations in Chichester, Laconia and Plymouth has been named the 2014 Family Business of the Year by the University of New Hampshire Center for Family Business.

Harris Family Furniture will be recognized at the fourth annual family business recognition dinner Wednesday, May 28, 2014, at the Manchester Country Club. The reception begins at 5:30 p.m., with dinner at 6:15 p.m., and the keynote address and awards at 7 p.m.

Lifetime achievement awards will also be presented to Gail Hayes Kelly of New Hampshire Distributors in Concord and Marc Drolet of General Linen Services in Somersworth. Amanda Grappone Osmer, CEO of Grappone Auto, a 90-year-old family business, is the keynote speaker.

Harris Family Furniture is a fourth generation company founded in 1961 in Bristol, New Hampshire, by Russell Harris and his brother Henry as Harris Brothers. Then in 1965, Russell opened what is now known as Harris Family Furniture on Main Street in Plymouth, and his four oldest children, Bill, Bob, Jack, and Richard joined him in the business. In 1972, Harris Family Furniture opened its second location in Laconia. Bill and Bob became the new store managers and brought their grandfather Henry out of retirement to work as their accounting manager. As the family grew larger, so did the need for additional expansion. The Plymouth Store moved out to Tenney Mountain Highway; and in 1985 Bill opened the third store in Chichester. Continuing in the family tradition, Russell, Jr. joined the company in 1993 and Bill's son Will came on board in 2003. 

Visit www.familybusiness.unh.edu/dinner to purchase tickets for the dinner. Tickets are $60 a person. Tables of 10 are available for $550.

The UNH Center for Family Business is sponsored by Mass Mutual Financial Group, Moitoza Consulting, Baker Newman & Noyes, Pierce Atwood, Management Planning, Inc., Harvest Capital and Optima Bank. It is a membership program to provide owners and managers of entrepreneurial businesses with an opportunity to exchange ideas and information and to discuss business challenges, concerns, and solutions. For more information, visit http://www.familybusiness.unh.edu/.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.

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