(Posted 9-13-99)
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
News Service Contact: Steve Gilliam, 336-334-5619
UNCG AWARDS FOR SERVICE TO BE PRESENTED
TO GERHARDT ZIMMERMANN, BETTY RAY MCCAIN
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GREENSBORO--Betty Ray McCain, who is the state’s secretary of cultural resources, and Gerhardt Zimmermann, music director and conductor of the North Carolina Symphony, will be honored for distinguished public service by The University of North Carolina at Greensboro on Sunday, Oct. 3.
McCain will receive the first Adelaide F. Holderness / H. Michael Weaver Award. Zimmermann will receive the Charles Duncan McIver Award. Both awards are medals and will be presented during the University Founders Day Dinner, to be held at 6:45 p.m. that day in Cone Ballroom of Elliott University Center.
The Holderness/Weaver Award recognizes North Carolinians who have rendered unusually distinguished public service to the community, state or nation, but who would not be generally prominent or known on a national basis. It was named in honor of Adelaide F. Holderness and H. Michael Weaver to honor the two Greensboro residents who have been longtime supporters of UNCG. The two served as co-chairs of The Second Century Campaign for UNCG which was completed earlier this year and raised $55.8 million.
The McIver Medal recognizes North Carolinians who have rendered distinguished public service to the state or nation. The bronze medal bears the likeness of Charles Duncan McIver, the founding president of the institution that is now UNCG. The honor was created in 1983 by the UNCG Board of Trustees and is awarded by action of the board. No more than one medal can be awarded in one year and there is no requirement that it be awarded annually.
McCain, who also will deliver the Founder’s Day address on Monday, Oct. 4, was appointed secretary of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources in 1993 by Gov. Jim Hunt. A long-time public servant, she currently is a member of the board of directors of the N.C. Telecommunications Agency, the N.C. Center for Public Television and the N.C. Art Society. She chairs the N.C. Heritage Tourism Advisory Committee. Other memberships include the N.C. Symphony Society and the Friends of the N.C. Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. In the past, she served four terms on the UNC Board of Governors, including service as chair of the board’s budget and finance committee and as secretary of the governance committee and the personnel and tenure committee. She also was the first woman member of the state’s advisory budget commission.
She was the first woman to serve to serve as chair of the N.C. Democratic Party and is a member of the Democratic Party executive committee. A graduate of St. Mary’s College and UNC-Chapel Hill, McCain received her master’s degree from Columbia University. She received the distinguished service medal from the UNC-CH alumni association and was named one of the 24 "Most Powerful Women in the Triangle" in 1996. She received the national Women in Government Award from Jaycettes. She has received honorary degrees from UNC-CH, UNC-Wilmington, Wake Forest University and Barton College.
Zimmermann has been music director and conductor of the North Carolina Symphony since 1982. In addition to his conducting duties, Zimmermann is responsible for all programming of classical and pops concerts, and he also oversees the symphony’s statewide educational program. Approximately 185 full-orchestra concerts are presented each year to audiences of approximately 100,000 school children and 275,000 adults. Zimmerman has had guest conducting assignments with the symphony orchestras of Cleveland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Phoenix, Syracuse, Rochester and San Antonio. In 1993, he made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra and pianist Andre Watts in the Kennedy Center’s highly acclaimed all-Beethoven Festival.
A native of Ohio, Zimmermann was previously associate conductor of the St. Louis Symphony where he was elected one of the Exxon Arts Endowment conductors. In addition to his duties in Raleigh, he serves as conductor for the Canton (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra and the Breckenridge Music Institute in Colorado. He was recognized for his artistic contributions in the Raleigh community with a Raleigh Medal of Arts in 1998. He holds the Maxine and Benjamin Swalin Chair, which was established by the Friends of the N.C. Symphony. Zimmermann also donates his time to organizations serving people with disabilities, including the Easter Seal Society.
Past recipients of the McIver Medal have included nationally known historian
Dr. John Hope Franklin; N.C. Gov. Terry Sanford; UNCG President Emeritus
William C. Friday; physician C. Stewart Rogers; former Congressman L. Richardson
Preyer; Susie M. Sharp, former chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court;
Archie K. Davis, former board chairman of Wachovia Corp. and a founder
and past president of the Research Triangle Park; Henry E. Frye, N.C. Supreme
Court chief justice; Robert B. Jordan III, former N.C. lieutenant governor.
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