Kokomo, Ind., a small town that’s produced global leaders; community creates Hall of Legends to provide recognition
KOKOMO, IND. – An inventor, a legendary children’s book author and illustrator, a Pulitzer prize-winner, a world-famous artist and print-maker, a noted broadcast journalist, and the man who was a part of UPS during its transition from an American parcel service to a global express delivery company are the first inductees into the Howard County Hall of Legends, showing that while Kokomo may be a small town, it has produced global leaders in everything from science to the arts.
Inductees are inventor Elwood Haynes, author and illustrator Norman Bridwell, Pulitzer winner David Ashenfelter, artist Misch Kohn, CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft, and former chairman of UPS Kent “Oz”
Nelson.
“I think Howard County can be very proud that this is our first class of inductees and this community’s produced these men of such statue and achievement,” said Craig Dunn, founder of the Hall of Legends.
The men will be honored at 6 p.m. during a reception and dinner at the Kokomo Country Club on July 31. Proceeds will go to the Howard County Historical Society.
Haynes is known for inventing America’s first mechanically successful gasoline-powered automobile in 1894, which is a part of the “American on the Move” exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Other notable inventions include stainless steel and the alloy Stellite, which was the first step in the development of a series of space-age alloys.
Bridwell, creator of Clifford the Big Red Dog, the loveable, laughable and beloved giant canine known the world over, has more than 44 million copies of his books in print and translated into many other languages. He has also won the Jeremiah Ludington Memorial Award for an individual who has made a significant contribution to the educational paperback business.
Ashenfelter won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for a series of articles he wrote with Sydney Freedberg for the Detroit News in which the reporters exposed the U.S. Navy's practice of covering up shipboard deaths.
In addition to the Pulitzer, he’s has won more than 50 other awards in journalism, including being honored an unprecedented nine times with the Wade McCree Advancement of Justice Award from the Michigan Bar Association for reporting on the legal profession.
Kohn, who shared studio space with Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall while studying at the Guggenheim in France, was the first artist to take wood engraving from standard, book-size illustrations to a large scale. His work is in more than 100 museums internationally.
Kroft’s body of work in the past 21 years for CBS landed him the Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 2003, one of 10 Emmys to his name. He’s won the George Foster Peabody award three times. As a correspondent, he was the first to document the involvement of the Russian mafia in the smuggling of nuclear materials out of the former Soviet Union and Cuba’s practice of quarantining people infected with the AIDS virus, among other reports.
Nelson, former chairman and chief executive officer of UPS, served on the United Way of America's Board of Governors and was chairman of the Center for Disease Control Foundation's Board of Directors, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the world's largest foundation dedicated to helping disadvantaged children, all during his retirement.
“The selection process was very difficult,” Dunn said, noting some of the other nominees: art director George W. Davis (who won Oscars for his work on “The Robe” and “The Diary of Anne Frank); Del Demaree (who in 1946 introduced a water tube made of translucent plastic with a rubber cap that allowed easy insertion of flower stems, named the Aquapic, which Kokomo’s Syndicate Sales produces as one of more than 1,500 items for the floral industry with customers in all 50 states, Canada, South America, Europe and Japan); actress Rebecca Klingler (“Titanic,” “The Green Mile,” and “LA Confidential”); Margaret Hillis (founder and first director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and winner of nine Grammys for Best Choral Performance); Don P. Moon (U.S. Navy Admiral who directed the landings on “Utah” Beach from the USS Bayfield during the June 6, 1944, invasion of Normandy and was featured on a postage stamp for the 60th anniversary of D-Day); Tavis Smiley (broadcaster, author, advocate and philanthropist who made television history as the moderator and executive producer of the “All-American Presidential Forums on PBS,” the first Democratic and Republican presidential debates broadcast live in primetime with a panel exclusively comprised of journalists of color); and Robert Westmoreland (a U.S. Marine Corps captain who served as a combat photographer during World War II and captured on film the invasion of Tarawa and Okinawa).
And that is just a partial list of one year’s worth of nominees.
“We have equally talented people to choose from next time,” Dunn said. “We have a pretty deep talent pool.”
Kelly R. Karickhoff
Executive Director
Howard County Historical Society