OFE News Release
Foundation to Honor State's Top Educators, Students at May 22 Academic Awards Banquet in Tulsa
April 29, 2010
OKLAHOMA CITY – Five outstanding Oklahoma educators will be honored along with 100 of the state’s top public high school seniors when the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence hosts its 24th annual Academic Awards Banquet at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 22, at the Renaissance Tulsa Hotel and Convention Center, 6808 S. 107th East Ave., Tulsa. Doors open at 6 p.m.
 |
| Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian David McCullough will be the featured speaker at the 24th annual Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence Academic Awards Banquet at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 22, at the Renaissance Tulsa Hotel and Convention Center in Tulsa. Admission is $50 per person. A mail-in reservation form is available online at www.ofe.org. |
The event will feature a keynote address by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian David McCullough. David L. Boren, founder and chairman of the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence, will serve as emcee for the statewide tribute honoring “the best of the best” in Oklahoma’s public schools. The gala event, which is attended by nearly 1,000 people, will also feature musical entertainment by the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute Orchestra. Reservations, at $50 per person, can be made through May 10 by contacting the foundation at (405) 236-0006 or by completing the mail-in reservation form online at www.ofe.org.
Widely acclaimed as a “master of the art of narrative history,” McCullough is twice winner of the National Book Award. In December 2006, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. McCullough’s most recent book, “1776,” sold more than 3 million copies and was a number-one “New York Times” national bestseller in both hardcover and paperback. His previous work, “John Adams,” now in its 63rd printing, remains one of the most critically acclaimed and widely read American biographies of all time.
“We are excited to welcome historian David McCullough to Tulsa to help us honor Oklahoma’s most outstanding public school seniors and educators,” said banquet chair Tanya Shaw of Tulsa. “The Academic Awards committee is working hard to make this year’s banquet a memorable event for all our honorees.”
The Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence is a non-profit, charitable organization founded in 1985 by then-U.S. Sen. Boren to recognize and encourage academic excellence in Oklahoma’s public schools. Through its Academic Awards Program, the foundation has provided more than $3.8 million in scholarships and cash awards to honor outstanding graduating seniors as Academic All-Staters and exceptional educators as Medal for Excellence winners.
The foundation also will present its Oklahoma Medal for Excellence Awards in Teaching to elementary honoree Diane Reece, Bokoshe Elementary School, Bokoshe; secondary winner Randy M. Baker, Putnam City North High School, Oklahoma City; regional university/community college winner Audrey Schmitz, instructor of visual art, Northern Oklahoma College, Tonkawa; and research university recipient David A. Sabatini, professor of civil engineering and environmental science at the University of Oklahoma, Norman. The recipient of the Medal for Excellence in elementary/secondary administration is Terry E. Davidson, superintendent of Comanche Public Schools, Comanche.
Each medal recipient will receive a $5,000 cash award as well as a glass “Roots and Wings” sculpture, created by the late Oklahoma artist Ron Roberts and produced by Jim Triffo of Oklahoma City. With support from scholarship sponsors, the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence will also present merit-based Academic All-State Scholarships of $1,000 each and bronze medallions to 100 Academic All-State Scholars. The 2010 All-State class hails from 75 different schools in 68 Oklahoma school districts. The honorees were selected from 621 nominations in what is described by Boren as “Oklahoma’s most rigorous academic competition.”
The Academic Awards Banquet will premiere statewide on public television at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 29, on OETA. Subsequent airings will be shown on OETA’s OKLA digital channel. For digital broadcast listings, visit the station’s Web site at www.oeta.onenet.net.
For more information on the Academic Awards Banquet, visit the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence Web site at www.ofe.org or call (405) 236-0006.