Four internationally renowned leaders and achievers will be honored for their lifetime accomplishments with the 29th annual Common Wealth Awards of Distinguished Service. These prestigious awards recognize individuals who have advanced and enriched society through their life's work.
The 2008 Common Wealth Award winners are:
-- Glenn Close, celebrated actress of stage, screen and television, for
Dramatic Arts;
-- John Howard, four-term prime minister of Australia, for Government;
-- Ann Curry, news anchor of NBC's Today, co-anchor of Dateline NBC, for
Mass Communications;
-- James Hansen, preeminent climate scientist, director of the NASA
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, for Science.
The honorees will receive a shared prize of $200,000 at the Common Wealth Awards ceremony, hosted by PNC Bank, Delaware, April 5 at the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington.
The Common Wealth Awards of Distinguished Service were first presented in 1979 by the Common Wealth Trust, created under the will of the late Ralph Hayes, an influential business executive and philanthropist.
In their 29-year history, the Common Wealth Awards have conferred $4.4 million in prize money to 165 honorees of international renown. The awards are funded by the Common Wealth Trust.
Ralph Hayes served on the board of directors of PNC Bank, Delaware's predecessor banks from 1935 to 1965. Through the Common Wealth Awards, he sought to recognize outstanding achievement in eight disciplines: dramatic arts, literature, science, invention, mass communications, public service, government, and sociology. The awards also provide an incentive for people to make future contributions to the world community.
PNC Bank, Delaware has been trustee and administrator for the Common Wealth Awards since their inception. PNC Bank, Delaware is a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:PNC) .
"The 2008 Common Wealth Award winners are among the most accomplished and admired men and women of our time," said Connie Bond Stuart, president of PNC Bank, Delaware. "Through their work and their achievements, these individuals have influenced the way we think, live and feel. In the spirit of the Common Wealth Awards, we honor these remarkable achievers for the legacy they have contributed and the possibilities yet to be realized."
The roster of past honorees reveals the caliber of talent and the global scope of the awardees and their achievements. Among the past winners are 11 Nobel laureates, including human rights leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former statesman Henry Kissinger and authors Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison. Other winners include former Secretary of State Colin Powell; children's television icon, the late Fred Rogers; Queen Noor of Jordan; stage and screen stars Sidney Poitier and Meryl Streep; astronaut John Glenn; primatologist Jane Goodall; ocean explorer Robert Ballard; television journalists Walter Cronkite and Cokie Roberts; and World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee.
