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Virginia
Prize Winners
It must be the climate, but from the
Nobel Prize to Olympic gold, the Old Dominion has
produced its share of high achievers. Whether it is
Staunton-born Woodrow Wilson, Tidewater native
William Styron, or lesser knowns, such as Norfolk
native and 1964
Olympic relay swimmer H. Thompson Mann or UVa
graduate and author Edward P. Jones, the
Commonwealth’s contribution to intellectual and
athletic achievement is quite impressive.
The Nobel Prize is perhaps the best known
award for intellectual achievement. The first
Virginian to be so honored was Wilson,
U.S.
president from 1913 – 1921. He was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize
for his efforts in setting up the
League of
Nations
at the end of World War I – a
bittersweet accomplishment when he was unable to get
the U.S. Senate to ratify the Covenant of the
League.
Wilson
was not present at the award ceremony (which was actually held a year
late in December 1920 due to the final days of World
War I). But, his words in a telegram read at the
ceremony seem prescient; the peace he valiantly
fought for lasted only two decades. He praised the
Prize’s founder, Alfred Nobel, on setting up a
continuing award. “If, there were but one such
prize, or if this were to be the last, I could not
of course accept it. For mankind has not yet been
rid of the unspeakable horror of war.”
In recent years Virginians have won the
Nobel Prize for less controversial achievements. In
fact, in 2002, the state boasted two laureates –
Vernon L. Smith, professor of economics and law at George
Mason
University in Fairfax
and John Fenn, a professor of chemistry at
Virginia
Commonwealth
University in
Richmond.
Smith shared his Nobel Prize in Economics
with a
Princeton
professor. Both were pioneers in an area called behavioral economics.
Smith is credited with inventing the field of
experimental economics. He developed a way to test
economic theories in a laboratory, using subjects
motivated by cash – often his students. Fenn’s
accomplishments are a bit more esoteric. He shared
the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with two others for his
work in developing methods of analyzing
macromolecules, such as proteins, using mass
spectrometry. We won’t even try to explain.
The Pulitzer is another prize won by many
Virginians. Ellen Glasgow was among early winners of
the award in fiction. She was awarded the Pulitzer
in 1942 for In
Our Life. In an essay in the Washington
Post (“‘Woman Within’: An Unlikely Rebel
of the Privileged South,” November 29, 2003
), critic Jonathan Yardley praises her powerful satire of the
Richmond society to which she
was born. “She was unsparing in her criticism of
the South’s tendency to sentimentalize itself and
its past.”
Twenty-six years later, Tidewater’s William Styron won the 1968 Pulitzer
in fiction for The
Confessions of Nat Turner, a novel that would
later stir controversy as black authors questioned
Styron’s characterization of the slave rebellion
leader.
Just last year Edward P. Jones, raised just across the border in D.C., but
a UVa graduate, received the Pulitzer Prize for
his novel, The
Known World, a poignant study of slavery in
antebellum Virginia. Other prominent Pulitzer winners include: William Cabell Bruce of
Charlotte County, an historian who won in 1918;
Willa Cather, who was born in Back Creek Valley near
Winchester, and won in 1923; Virginius Dabney, an
historian and editor of the Richmond
Times-Dispatch, who won in 1948; and Russell
Baker, a Loudoun County native, who won in 1979 and
1983.
While the Nobel and Pulitzer are perhaps
the most familiar prizes, Virginia has also produced
some MacArthur “genius” award-winners. Janine
Jagger, a U.Va. epidemiologist, won the $500,000
fellowship in 2002 for her work in protecting
health-care workers from the transmission of
blood-borne diseases. She and her colleagues proved
that it was the design of sharp medical devices,
rather than how they were used, that was most
related to injury risk. A year earlier, another UVa
researcher, physical chemist Brooks Pate, won
similar recognition from the MacArthur Foundation
for his work in high-energy chemistry.
Last but not least are Old Dominion
athletes who have garnered honors and medals.
Basketball’s Moses Malone was a league Most
Valuable Player in 1983 and hails from Petersburg.
We’ve got several football Hall of Famers,
including Bill Dudley from Bluefield; Willie Lanier
from Clover; Fran Tarkington from Richmond; and
Lawrence Taylor from Williamsburg. Sam Snead, who
won numerous golf titles, was a Hot Springs native.
Richmond’s Arthur Ashe was a Wimbledon champion.
Then there are the Olympians. In addition
to H. Thompson Mann of Norfolk, who won the gold
medal in the 400-meter relay backstroke in 1964,
there are numerous Virginians who won gold medals in
sports ranging from canoeing (Frank Benjamin Havens,
Arlington, 1952) to 100-meter hurdles (Benita P.
Fitzgerald, Dale City, 1984) to boxing (Norvel
Layfayette Lee, Eagle Rock, 1952).
Woodrow Wilson once said, “No man [and
of course, woman] that does not see visions will
ever realize any high hope or undertake any high
enterprise.” In the Old Dominion, we seem to have
nurtured many such visionaries!
high hope or undertake any high
UP NEXT: Virginia’s Mayors Big and
Small
--
February 28, 2005
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