Six Receive 2011 N.C. Awards
Six outstanding North Carolinians received the North Carolina Award, the state's highest honor, on Nov. 10. In a ceremony held at the N.C. Museum of History, Gov. Bev Perdue awarded the gold medallion of service to Charles E. Hamner, Jr., of Chapel Hill and H. Martin Lancaster, of Raleigh, both for Public Service; Trudy F.C. Mackay, of Raleigh, for Science; Ron Rash, of Cullowhee, for Literature; and Vollis Simpson, of Lucama, and Branford Marsalis, of Durham, both for Fine Arts.
Created by the General Assembly in 1961, and administered by the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the award recognizes significant contributions of individuals in the fields of fine arts, literature, public service, and science over time. Since 1964, more than 250 North Carolinians have received the prestigious award. Past award recipients have included some of the country’s most distinguished artists, poets, writers, performers, journalists, scientists and public servants. The award is administered by the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.
2011 N.C. Award Recipients
Charles E. Hamner – Public Service
Biotechnology industries flourish in the Tar Heel State, backed by support from academics, industry, and state government. But North Carolina courted biotechnology before biotech was trendy, and one of the chief courtiers was Charles Hamner. Called a “catalyst, advocate, leader, problem solver, and risk taker,” Hamner is credited with propelling North Carolina to preeminence within the biosciences industry.
Charles Hamner was born in 1935 in Schuyler, Virginia—the home of 1970s television family, the Waltons. His childhood was not unlike that of the Waltons, the storyline having been developed by his cousin, writer Earl Hamner Jr. Hamner studied animal husbandry at Virginia Tech and went on to earn three degrees from the University of Georgia, a Masters of Arts in chemistry and doctorate degrees in veterinary medicine and biochemistry. From 1964 to 1988 he worked at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, teaching surgery and biochemistry.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s Hamner’s research focused on the reproductive systems of animals. The procedures he helped develop laid the groundwork for in vitro fertilization in humans. A project related to the biochemistry of blood produced information critical to transplant surgeries. Hamner also was involved in reformulating several over-the-counter drugs including Robitussin, although he quips, “It’s hard to make that stuff taste good.”
Hamner’s success in converting research into viable commercial applications attracted the attention of North Carolina Biotechnology Center administrators, and in 1988 he took the helm of the organization. Understanding the potential long-term growth of life sciences, Hamner encouraged and assisted state universities in hiring top-notch researchers and persuaded the government to fund major discovery programs. The idea was that public investment would attract grant money, which it did—about $850 million.
Hamner created a convertible loan fund that assisted fifty-two biotech start-up companies in obtaining $450 million in venture capital. The companies, in turn, built North Carolina facilities worth $900 million and generated 6,000 new jobs. By applying theoretical research to products and technologies, he continued to build the framework for biotechnology in the state. The state consistently ranks among the top biotechnology centers in industry surveys.
Hamner retired from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center in 2002 but shortly thereafter was appointed Chairman of the Board of the Chemical Institute for Industrial Toxicology, renamed the Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences in his honor. The Hamner, as it is known, guides innovative chemical and pharmaceutical development with an emphasis on product safety. He has been awarded three honorary doctorates, including one from Northern Ireland’s University of Ulster, the citation there recognizing his boosts to the pharmaceutical industry in that region.
H. Martin Lancaster – Public Service
Return on investment is the goal with respect to retirement funds but the same principle applies to education. Over the past fifty years North Carolina has invested in fifty-eight community colleges with annual enrollment of over 800,000. That system, which serves as the primary agency for job training and adult education, has had no greater advocate than Martin Lancaster.
Harold Martin Lancaster grew up on a 300-acre tobacco farm in Wayne County. When he went off to Chapel Hill in 1961, he received from his father two acres to manage and to pay for college. Completing law school at UNC in 1967, Lancaster joined the Navy, where he served as a judge advocate general before returning to Wayne County to practice law. In eight years in the State House, beginning in 1978, Lancaster championed the highway safety bill and the guardian ad litem law, giving children advocates in court. Lancaster then served in the U.S. House, increasing military jobs in the Third District and opposing tax increases on tobacco. He mastered negotiation and compromise, representing the House in Geneva talks on chemical weapons.
It was the work as president of the community college system that brought Lancaster his greatest satisfaction. That included advocacy in 2000 for the $3.1 billion Higher Education Bond package, with $600 million designated for community colleges. Lancaster extended the relationship with the university system to include the Homegrown Teacher Initiative, a partnership permitting lateral entry into UNC institutions. Biotechnology training in the community colleges accelerated under his leadership.
Lancaster’s imprint on education extends beyond the state and nation, as he advised on skills training in Thailand and in Northern Ireland, where the University of Ulster presented him with an honorary doctorate in 2005. Earlier this year Prince Charles acknowledged Lancaster’s work by making him an honorary Officer of the British Empire. His further honors include national 4-H alumnus of the year and the Peabody Award presented by the School of Education at his alma mater.
A past chair of the North Carolina Arts Council, he helped establish Arts Advocates to boost arts funding. On his retirement from community colleges in 2008 (he continues to practice law), his colleagues commended him for turning the Caswell Building into an art gallery by displaying throughout artwork by community college students, teachers, and staff.
Trudy F. C. Mackay – Science
Most people swat at fruit flies that are drawn to the produce at the State Farmer’s Market in Raleigh. Not Trudy Mackay. She collected fruit flies at the market and has established and genetically sequenced 192 lines of the Drosophila fly, each assessed for various complex traits that can be used for complex genetic research. The flies, which she makes available to other researchers, have become a major, standardized, resource for the community to use for gene discovery and evolutionary studies. The internationally renowned quantitative geneticist is redefining the boundaries of the genetics of complex traits
Trudy Florence Charlene Mackay was born in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, in 1952. Her family moved frequently with her father, who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia before attending the University of Edinburgh where she received a Ph. D. in genetics. In Scotland Mackay learned that, in her words, “the fruit fly is a handy model organism for studying the genetics of longevity and other complex traits in animals.” There are, indeed, parallels between fruit fly and human genetics, so lessons learned on the fruit fly often can be applied to human health. At North Carolina State University, where she is the William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Entomology, Mackay continues her research, impacting human genetics and evolutionary biology.
Mackay is committed to diversity in higher education, serving as lead investigator for her school’s Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity program. She serves as a role model and mentor for countless students who seek careers in genetics. She even provides internships for high school students in her laboratory. One of her postdoctoral students observes that Mackay “has an impressive legacy of trainees, particularly women.” She literally has written the book on behavioral genetics, being the co-author of the subject’s most widely-used textbook.
Mackay has been named a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She has received the Genetics Society of America Medal and the O. Max Gardner Award, the University of North Carolina system’s highest honor. As a mark of her continued accomplishments, the Bell Tower at N.C. State University has been lit in her honor on three separate occasions.
Branford Marsalis – Fine Arts
Internationally respected saxophonist Branford Marsalis set down roots in Durham ten years ago. The Tar Heel State, birthplace of John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk, welcomed the young exponent of what has been called “America’s greatest art form.”
Born in 1960, the New Orleans native, along with his family, was honored in 2011 by the National Endowment for the Arts with an unprecedented Jazz Masters Fellowship group award. He studied at the Berklee College of Music but received practical training on the road with Clark Terry’s band, Lionel Hampton’s band, and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. “I’ve always been an advocate of expanding modern concepts in jazz but I’ve felt this was best done through the tradition,” Marsalis says.
Though best known as a jazzman, Marsalis has interests extending to classical music, the blues, and funk. He joined Sting on the latter’s first solo project. He played saxophone on Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” in 1989. He long hosted the weekly program JazzSet on National Public Radio. The Branford Marsalis Quartet, which has recorded at Durham’s Hayti Heritage Center, received the Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. Last year his score for August Wilson’s play Fences brought him a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award.
Audiences far and wide know Marsalis for his work beyond the recording studio. He has had small roles in films but it was his gig as Jay Leno’s bandleader on The Tonight Show from 1992 to 1995 that propelled his public image. After leaving The Tonight Show, he delved ever more deeply into the classical realm, both as composer and performer, and took on teaching posts at Michigan State University, San Francisco State University, and at North Carolina Central University.
Marsalis has been a featured soloist with the Chicago, Detroit, Dusseldorf, and North Carolina Symphonies. His 2003 album Romare Bearden Revealed is a tribute to the Charlotte-born visual artist. The following year his live performance of Coltrane’s A Love Supreme appeared. His latest CD is Songs of Mirth and Melancholy, with pianist Joey Calderazzo.
Marsalis grew up in a family that believes in service to others. Along with his friend Harry Connick, Jr., he promoted recovery efforts in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Here in North Carolina, he served as the spokesman for the Library Card campaign for the State Library of North Carolina, and, as a board member of the N.C. Symphony, Marsalis helped organize and performed for a benefit in 2010 that brought in more than $145,000 to the orchestra.
Ron Rash – Literature
“Too much too soon disappears.” The sentiment in those five words, from the closing line of a 2002 poem, defines a life’s work for Ron Rash. Since 2003 the holder of the John Parris Chair in Appalachian Studies at Western Carolina University, Rash is the author of fourteen books—novels, collections of short stories, and volumes of poetry. Evident in his work is respect for mountain people, language, history, and culture. Ron Rash was born in 1953 in the foothills, in Chester, South Carolina. He later moved with his family to Boiling Springs, North Carolina, where his father taught art at Gardner-Webb College (now University). His family members were primarily mill hands who maintained close ties to the mountains they had forsaken for steady work (they “pined hard for their mountain homes”). Young Rash spent summers on his grandmother’s farm near Boone, isolated but exultant in his solitude, catching crawfish and retracing old trails. For him his grandmother’s tales “portrayed the world as a magical place.” He states, “I would say that area is my spirit county and always will be.”
Respect for his elders is a distinguishing feature of Rash’s work. One critic observes that he “takes us to a place where the living and the dead coexist, a place where there is a fine line between the past and the present.” A distinct memory from childhood is when his grandfather picked up The Cat in the Hat and proceeded to regale him with vivid, but changing stories of the mischievous characters in the Dr. Seuss classic. In time it became apparent was that Rash’s grandfather could not read and had made up the stories out of whole cloth.
A middle distance runner and a graduate of Gardner-Webb and Clemson University, Rash taught English for two years in high school and for seventeen years at a technical college. He then returned to teach at Clemson before moving to Cullowhee. A number of his works are set in upcountry South Carolina, Oconee County in particular, but the setting for his 2009 novel Serena is the area along the Chattooga River in Jackson County.
Rash has reaped a harvest of prizes, among them the Novello Festival Novel Award, the O. Henry Award, the Sir Walter Raleigh Award, and the Frank O’Connor Award. In 2004 his life and work was the focus of the annual literary festival at Emory and Henry College. In 2011 he was inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Vollis Simpson – Fine Arts
An internationally recognized artist who never set out to become an artist, Vollis Simpson entered the art world at an age when most people enter retirement. He worked for years creating and building machines that could lift heavy items. He also earned a living repairing farm machinery. At about age sixty-five, Simpson turned his mechanical abilities to the creation of large-scale wind-driven kinetic metal sculptures. The sculptures—Simpson calls them windmills, others call them whirligigs—are without equal and have delighted and astonished people worldwide.
Vollis Simpson was born in Lucama in 1919. While serving in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II he was stationed on Saipan, in the Marianas Islands, where there was no fuel or electricity. Improvising, he built a wind-powered washing machine. “The thing went up and down in the water. It must have worked pretty good, ‘cause somebody swiped it, but I built a bigger one with an oscillating motion and secured it.” Returning home, he continued to use his powers of ingenuity as he established a repair shop and house moving business.
In the mid-1980s an injury forced Simpson to close his business. He adapted his Lucama machine repair shop and began to use his heavy equipment to make whirligigs. He says that many of his pieces were first envisioned in his dreams and then later become a reality in his shop. Made out of old wheels, scrap metal, odds and ends, paint and reflectors, these wind machines are created for the sheer pleasure of seeing them work. The whirligigs, which Simpson placed on one corner of his brother’s farm, enchanted many, and the farm became something of a roadside attraction.
Simpson’s sculptures, which range from soaring pieces that rise high in the air to small whirligigs, have been called “roadside gifts to the eye and spirit,” beguiling people from Albuquerque to Atlanta. One of his works is the signature piece on display outside of the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. Several Simpson wind machines delighted tourists at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. The North Carolina Museum of Art boasts a large whirligig in its Art Park.
The City of Wilson has, for several years, hosted a Whirligig Festival to celebrate Simpson’s renowned artwork. In an exciting project, Wilson will feature 29 of Simpson’s restored whirligigs in a dedicated downtown two-acre public park. The Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park Project has received a grant of $500,000 from 11 of America’s top foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts. The North Carolina Arts Council is also working with the town of Wilson on the Whirligig Park.
About the North Carolina Awards Details about the North Carolina Awards, programs, and biographies of prior recipients are available at http://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/digital/ncawards/ . Nominations for the 2012 North Carolina Award may include biographies, resumes and letters of support, and may be submitted by anyone. They should be sent to the North Carolina Awards Committee, N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, 4601 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, N.C. 27699-4601. For additional information on the North Carolina Awards call (919) 807-7389 or (919) 807-7256.
