News Release

Local angles: Bethlehem, Pa.; Pittsboro; and Raleigh.

UNC trustees honor four with Davie Award 
in recognition of extraordinary service

CHAPEL HILL – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees last night (Nov. 16) presented four longtime friends of the university with the prestigious William Richardson Davie Award.

Chancellor James Moeser and the Board of Trustees honored the following Davie Award recipients at a Carolina Inn dinner: Marjorie Bryan Buckley of Bethlehem, Pa.; Donald Curtis of Raleigh; Frank Daniels Jr. of Raleigh; and Richard J. "Dick" Richardson of Pittsboro.

Established by UNC’s Board of Trustees in 1984, the Davie Award is named for the Revolutionary War hero who is considered the father of the university. It is the highest honor bestowed by the trustees and recognizes extraordinary service to the university or to society.

Since graduating from UNC in 1962, Buckley has led efforts to bring Outward Bound to North Carolina and to create UNC’s Carolina Center for Public Service.

Buckley served on the university’s Board of Visitors from 1997 to 2001. She now serves on the Carolina First Campaign Steering Committee and the Carolina Women’s Leadership Council, as well as its executive committee. She received the UNC General Alumni Association's Distinguished Service Medal in 2004.

Curtis began his first radio job at 15. He has gone on to head Raleigh-based Curtis Media Group, which operates North Carolina’s largest network of radio stations, including flagships WPTF-AM and WQDR-FM. More than 1 million North Carolinians listen to one or more of the chain’s stations each week.

A UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication alumnus, Curtis was inducted into the N.C. Association of Broadcasters’ Hall of Fame in 2002. He is past president of the N.C. Association of Broadcasters and has served on its board of directors since 1978. Curtis received the association’s Distinguished Service Award in 1990. He also has been named to the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.

Curtis and his wife, Barbara, have created a fund to support extracurricular student activities at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Curtis is a member of the Carolina First Campaign Raleigh Regional Committee and helped lead the effort to renovate Memorial Hall. He served on UNC’s Board of Visitors from 1998 to 2002.

Daniels received his UNC history degree in 1953. In 1971, he became publisher and president of The News & Observer in Raleigh, posts he held until retiring in 1996. During this stretch of his career, he championed government openness, and The News & Observer won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service Journalism in 1996 for stories on the environmental and health risks of waste disposal in hog farming. That same year, Daniels was inducted into the N.C. Journalism Hall of Fame.

Also in 1996, Daniels and his wife, Julia Jones Daniels, were named outstanding philanthropists of the year by the Triangle Chapter of the National Society of Fund Raising Executives. That year, they established the Julia and Frank Daniels Endowment Fund at the Greater Triangle Community Foundation.

Daniels is a former director of UNC’s General Alumni Association and a former member of UNC’s Board of Visitors. During Carolina’s Bicentennial Campaign, which ran from 1990 to 1995, he served on the steering committee. He has served as a trustee for UNC’s Kenan Institute.

Richardson received many awards and laurels during his 31 years at UNC. A few years after joining Carolina’s department of political science in 1969, he received the Tanner Award for Excellence in Teaching, his first of four career teaching awards.

In 1995, then-Chancellor Michael Hooker selected Richardson to be the university’s provost. Hooker and Richardson served four years together, and during that time seven new deans were appointed, along with several other high-ranking administrators.

Richardson’s honors include the C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award, the Order of the Golden Fleece, the Order of the Grail, the Society of Janus, the Thomas Jefferson Award, the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the James Johnston Undergraduate Teaching Award, the UNC General Alumni Association Faculty Service Award and the Order of the Old Well. To honor him, his colleagues and friends established the Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professorship for a senior scholar and teacher in American politics.

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Photo URLs: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/award/davie05/Buckley.jpg 
http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/award/davie05/Curtis.jpg 
http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/award/davie05/Daniels.jpg 
http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/award/davie05/Richardson.jpg

Development Communications contact: Scott Ragland, (919) 962-0027 or scott_ragland@unc.edu