Recipients of the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service
2008 Recipient: Ted Turner
Since 2000, the Allen Prize has been awarded annually to an individual who, over the course of a lifetime, has contributed to the progress of American civilization through his or her service to a field or profession associated with one or more of the academic disciplines taught in the Ivan Allen College. The past winners have been Senator Zell Miller (2001), President Jimmy Carter (2002), the late columnist Molly Ivins (2003), Senator Sam Nunn (2004), electronic games innovator Will Wright (2005), civil rights and business leader Jesse Hill Jr. (2006), and philanthropists and conservationists Charles & Lessie Smithgall (2007).
With this award, the College seeks to recognize not only Turner's past contributions as a businessman to the progress of Atlanta, but also his service to the nation and the world as one of the most influential philanthropists of our time.
For over 30 years, Turner's base of operations has been Atlanta. Like Ivan Allen Jr., Turner began his business career working in the family business, Turner Advertising Company, which specialized in outdoor advertising. He entered the television business in 1970 when he acquired Atlanta independent UHF station Channel 17. In 1976, Turner launched TBS Superstation, thereby originating the "Superstation" concept. He also purchased Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves that year, and the following year also acquired the National Basketball Association's Atlanta Hawks, enabling both teams to gain national exposure through Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Over the next two decades, the company built a portfolio of unrivaled cable television news and entertainment brands and businesses, including CNN Headline News, CNN International, TNT, Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies.
Turner now dedicates his time and resources to making the world a better, safer place for future generations. Just over a decade ago, Turner announced his historic pledge of $1 billion to the United Nations Foundation (UNF). The organization supports the goals and objectives of the United Nations to promote a more peaceful, prosperous and just world. UNF has identified four core priorities: women and population; children's health; the environment; and peace and security. And in early 2001, together with former Senator Sam Nunn, NTI Turner launched the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a foundation he co-chairs with Nunn that is working to close the growing and increasingly dangerous gap between the threat from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the global response.
Turner's other major philanthropic interest is the environment, which he supports via the Turner Foundation, the Captain Planet Foundation, and the Turner Endangered Species Fund.
In addition, he remains actively involved in business with the rapidly expanding Ted's Montana Grill restaurant chain. As the nation’s largest private landowner, Turner, as chairman of Turner Enterprises, Inc., also manages over two million acres in 12 states and in Argentina, on which resides some 45,000 head of bison, the largest commercial bison herd in North America.
Over his career, Turner has been the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, industry awards and civic honors, including being named Time magazine's 1991 Man of the Year and Broadcasting and Cable’s Man of the Century in 1999. Now, he adds to his many kudos recognition as the Ivan Allen Prize winner for 2008.
For more information on Ted Turner, please visit www.tedturner.com
| 2007 Recipient: Charles and Lessie Smithgall |
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In the spring of 1988, a remarkable letter arrived on the desk of Dr. John P. Crecine, then president of Georgia Tech. The letter began by thanking him for taking whatever action was necessary to name a proposed new college at Tech for Ivan Allen Jr., 1933 alumnus and former Mayor of Atlanta.
The letter went on to confirm the writer's commitment of $3 million to Georgia Tech, but only “if it is able to honor Ivan Allen in the manner we have agreed.” Then the writer states, “It is of utmost importance to me that there be no public or private acknowledgement of my making these gifts and I appreciate your pledge to maintain the confidentiality I seek.”
And so, for the next two decades, Georgia Tech honored the writer's wish to keep his gift a secret from his friend and classmate. Accordingly, when Ivan Allen Jr. died in 2003, he went to his grave never knowing of the extraordinary act of friendship and generosity that had led to the naming of a college in his honor—to date, still the only alumnus to be so honored at Georgia Tech.
This year, almost 20 years after that fateful letter landed on President Crecine's desk, the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts is proud to acknowledge this historic gift by awarding its donor, Charles Smithgall ('33), with the 2007 Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service. As in the past, the Prize will be awarded at the College's annual Founder's Day luncheon on Thursday, March 15, the birthday of Mayor Allen.
This year the occasion will mark a new precedent, in that the prize will be awarded posthumously for the first time, inasmuch as Charles Smithgall died in 2000. And in also honoring his widow, Lessie Smithgall, as co-recipient, the 2007 Allen Prize breaks precedent again in being the first award made to a couple.
The gift to name the college was hardly the first or the last that Charles and Lessie Smithgall bestowed on Georgia Tech, Atlanta, and the State of Georgia. All told, they have contributed more than $20 million in property and money over the course of their lifetimes, which has had an extraordinary impact upon both the natural and built environment.
Their gifts to the state and city include:
- Smithgall Woods, the 5,600-acre nature preserve and lodge in north Georgia that Charles Smithgall assembled over his lifetime and then acceded to the state in a gift-purchase agreement in 1994;
- The 168-acre Smithgall Woodlands Gardens in Gainesville, GA, which Charles and Lessie Smithgall donated to Atlanta Botanical Gardens in 2000 to allow the landlocked urban setting room to expand its native and endangered plant conservation program;
- Major endowments for the Atlanta Symphony, the Gainesville Arts Council, and the Atlanta Zoo.
At the University of Georgia, Lessie Smithgall's alma mater, the Smithgalls funded the Lambdin Kay Chair for the Peabodys, which endows the director of the prestigious annual broadcasting awards that Lessie Smithgall was instrumental in bringing to UGA.
At Tech, the Smithgall's philanthropy is responsible for no less that three chairs in the College of Science as well as the building that houses the Student Services division and support for student athletic facilities. Last but by no means least on this distinguished list, of course, is the anonymous endowment of a new college in the name of their mutual friend and college classmate.
Besides their gifts, the Smithgalls have had a significant impact on conservation philanthropy itself. Charles Smithgall's acquisition and gifting of Smithgall Woods is now considered a model for private land use development by conservationists nationally. Twice the Georgia State legislature voted unanimously to recognize his philanthropy and service on behalf of the citizens of the state.
Besides being honored along with her husband for their many gifts, Lessie Smithgall has herself been recognized for her own philanthropic efforts, receiving the Global Conservation Award in 2004 from the Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund International.
2006 Recipient: Jesse Hill, Jr. 
As an executive and CEO of the largest African-American owned financial institution in America, he continued to build upon the company's strong tradition of supporting human and civil rights activism. Over the course of his successful career, Hill has compiled a long list of “door-opening firsts” for African-Americans.
Appointed by Mayor Allen to chair the bargaining committee that negotiated the purchase of what was to become Metropolitan Area Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), Hill was the first African American member to sit on MARTA's Board of Directors. He also was the first African-American selected to serve on the Board of Regents for the University System of Georgia. In 1977, he was elected president of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, the first African-American to hold such a position in a major U.S. city. He also was elected as the first black member of the Board of Trustees of the Commerce Club, the elite venue of Atlanta 's previously all-white power structure.
During the 1960s, Hill directed his company to quietly underwrite civil rights initiatives throughout the South, such as providing bail money to release individuals arrested in sit-ins and other protests. For over fifteen years, he also served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Social Change. In addition, Hill served on the Board of Directors and in various leadership capacities for the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Hill also founded The Atlanta Inquirer , the weekly newspaper that became the voice of the civil rights movement in Atlanta.
| 2005 Recipient: Will Wright |
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Wright’s ground-breaking game The Sims, puts players in charge of the lives of a neighborhood of simulated people. Released in February of 2000, this wildly popular title has become a cultural phenomenon. The Sims has inspired six expansion packs. Livin’Large, House Party, Vacation, Unleashed and Superstar allow players to put their simulated families into new extreme situations and settings. The final expansion pack, Makin’ Magic, was released in October 2003. Taking its bow in December 2002 was Wright’s much anticipated The Sims Online™, which was featured in a cover story in Newsweek Magazine. The next generation of The Sims PC products debuted in September 2004 with The Sims 2, which became the fastest selling PC game ever selling more than a million copies in the first ten days worldwide.
In 1999, Will was included in Entertainment Weekly’s “It List” of “the 100 most creative people in entertainment” as well as Time Digital’s “Digital 50”, a listing of “the most important people shaping technology today.” In 2002, he was #35 on Entertainment Weekly’s Power List and was also inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame. In 2003, Will was features in Game Informer’s ‘Top 10 Developer List of 2003’. Each year Wright, along with his daughter Cassidy, takes part in the annual Battlebot competition which was broadcast nationally on Comedy Central. His interest in plastic models of ships and airplanes during his childhood in Georgia eventually led to his designing computer models of cities, ecosystems and ant colonies.
| 2004 Recipient: Sam Nunn |
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During his tenure in the U.S. Senate, Nunn served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He also served on the Intelligence and Small Business Committees. His legislative achievements include the landmark Department of Defense Reorganization Act, drafted with the late Senator Barry Goldwater, and the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which provides assistance to Russia and the former Soviet republics for securing and destroying their excess nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
In addition to his work with NTI, Nunn has continued his service in the public policy arena as a distinguished professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and as chairman of the board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
Raised in Perry, Georgia, Nunn attended Georgia Tech, Emory University and Emory Law School, where he graduated with honors in 1962. After active duty service in the U.S. Coast Guard, he served six years in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. He first entered politics as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives in 1968.
| 2003 Recipient: Molly Ivins |
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The primary selection criterion for the Allen Prize is rather broad - namely, that recipients over the course of their careers have contributed significantly to the progress and service of a subject area or field relevant to one of the disciplines in the Ivan Allen College. As an award-wining journalist and a role model for many women in the field of journalism and elsewhere, the committee felt that Molly Ivins clearly meets this criterion.
As a nationally syndicated columnist who appears regularly in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution and other papers around the state, not to mention her appearances on C-SPAN and PBS as a news analyst or commentator, her Georgia presence - another criterion of the prize - is quite prominent. In addition to these perennial criteria, the committee exercised its license to acknowledge other circumstances in their selection duties.
To this end, the committee made great note of the fact that the 2002-2003 academic year is a one in which the Institute is honoring many "firsts" by women during their 50 year presence on campus—the first enrollee, the first graduate, the first student government president, the first "Buzz," and the like. Hence, we are proud and honored that the 2003 prize is to be awarded to its very first woman recipient.
| 2002 Recipient: President Carter |
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| 2001 Recipient: Senator Zell Miller |
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Out-spoken U.S. Senator, nationally-acclaimed governor, best-selling author, university professor, Zell Miller is one of the most colorful and controversial political figures in America today. He was awarded the first Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service for his leadership in creating the Hope scholarship program, which provides free college tuition for every high school graduate with a B average and a voluntary statewide pre-kindergarten program for all four year olds.