Last Updated on August 24, 2016 4:03 pm
RALEIGH, N.C. — The state's highest civilian honor, the North Carolina Award, will be presented to seven distinguished North Carolinians Thursday, Sept. 22, at the Raleigh Marriott City Center. Governor Pat McCrory will present the awards at the 7 p.m. banquet and ceremony, following a reception for the recipients at 6 p.m.
The 2016 honorees are Joseph Bathanti of Vilas for Literature; Dr. Linda S. Birnbaum of Chapel Hill for Science; Robert J. Brown of High Point for Public Service; James C. Gardner of Rocky Mount for Public Service; Dr. Assad Meymandi of Raleigh for Fine Arts; and Dr. Aziz Sancar and Dr. Paul L. Modrich of Chapel Hill for Science. The awards are administered by the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
“It is an honor to pay tribute to these remarkable individuals who have made North Carolina better by their extraordinary involvement in this state,” said Susan Kluttz, Secretary of the N. C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. “Each has enriched the lives of our citizens and propelled North Carolina onto the national and world stages.
Literature: Joseph Bathanti

Science: Dr. Linda S. Birnbaum

Public Service: Robert J. Brown
After an early career in law enforcement, Bob Brown decided to go into public relations and founded B & C Associates in High Point. He started advising major corporations such as Kimberly Clark, Johnson Wax, F. W. Woolworth, Sara Lee and Nabisco in an era of civil rights. In 1968, he took leave from his company to serve as Special Assistant to newly-elected President Richard M. Nixon. In the White House, his duties included responsibility for community relations, civil rights and emergency preparedness. Brown developed the U.S. Minority Business Enterprise Program and chaired the White House Task Force on Small Towns. Shortly before teaming with President Nixon, Brown, who had traveled with close friend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., advised the civil rights leader's widow Coretta Scott King after her husband's assassination. Brown also worked closely with Whitney Young of the National Urban League, another Nixon confidante. A highlight of Brown's life came when he met for two hours with Nelson Mandela, incarcerated at that time in Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town, South Africa. Brown's many visits to Africa led him to found the BookSmart Foundation which since has distributed over five million books to South Africa, Malawi, Nigeria, Ghana and other nations.
Public Service: James C. Gardner

Fine Arts: Dr. Assad Meymandi
Dr. Assad Meymandi, psychiatrist, scholar, and patriot, has been generous with his gifts. He is transforming Raleigh into a center for art, music, literature and learning. Toward that end, he funded the state-of-the-art, 1,800-seat concert hall that serves the North Carolina Symphony and bears his mother's name. At the North Carolina Museum of Art, he established the Meymandi Exhibition Center, the museum's largest special exhibition space, named for his father. One dream remains, to build an opera house as a home for the N.C. Opera on the grounds of the former Dix Hospital where he began his career a half-century ago. He has also pledged funding toward converting this land into a city park. In Iran, Meymandi has funded a symphony hall in addition to a school, a public library and new homes for those displaced by an earthquake. At the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, he has funded a fellowship to integrate study of the humanities with science that brings together the think tank leaders in the arts and sciences. Meymandi is in the process of endowing the Chair of “Ideas and Curiosity” at UNC-Chapel Hill. At St. Mary's School, he has sponsored music programs and at Cherry Hill in Warren County, an annual concert.
Dr. Aziz Sancar of UNC-Chapel Hill and Dr. Paul L. Modrich of Duke University, were the 2015 Nobel Prize winners for Chemistry, along with Tomas Lindahl of Cancer Research UK's Clare Laboratory. Each of the researchers discovered different ways that damaged DNA could be repaired. The groundbreaking work of each of them led to understanding ways to treat cancer and other diseases. Sancar discovered that bacteria recovered from deadly doses of ultraviolet radiation when exposed to blue light being mediated by the photolyase enzyme. He cloned the gene for the enzyme photolyase, which repairs UV damaged DNA in bacteria. Sancar also deciphered the mechanism of another DNA enzyme system called nucleotide excision repair. His work has increased understanding of how living cells work, the causes of cancer and the aging process. Modrich was an early explorer in the relatively little understood world of DNA research as an undergraduate student in the 1960s. Modrich embraced the research and discovered that cells have a way of repairing themselves when DNA strands are improperly paired. The system, called mismatch repair (MMR), serves as a proofreading mechanism that reduces the error rate by a factor of one thousand. This is a particularly important finding for colon cancer and other tumors and diseases, as well as for responses to anti-cancer DNA damaging drugs.
This event is generously sponsored by Diamond Sponsor United Guaranty; Gold Sponsors Joseph M. Bryan Jr. and Bob Barker Company; Silver Sponsors Thomas S. Kenan III, PepsiCo, UNC School of Medicine, Duke Health and Appalachian State University; and Supporting Sponsor PotashCorp-Aurora. No state monies are used for this event. Tickets are available online at
http://www.ncdcr.gov/about/special-programs/nc-awards/rsvp.
http://www.ncdcr.gov/about/special-programs/nc-awards/rsvp.
Created by the General Assembly in 1961, the North Carolina Awards have been presented annually since 1964. The award recognizes significant contributions to the state and nation in the fields of fine arts, literature, public service and science. For additional information, please call (919) 807-7388 or (919) 807-7256.