Orchid Digest - Medal of Honor

ORCHID DIGEST MEDAL OF HONOR

The Orchid Digest Corporation Award of Recognition for Meritorious Service to the Orchid World was inaugurated September 18, 1955, by the Board of Directors at a meeting held in Fresno, California.

The medallion was designed by Elsie Hetherington (Mrs. Ernest E.) of Arcadia, who submitted six different designs from which to choose. It is of sterling silver – with raised design and lettering – and is 2 ¼ inches in width and approximately 1/8 inch in thickness. The bar in center of the reverse side is for engraving of the recipient’s name and the small bar for inscription of the year awarded.

Mr. Robert Casamajor was the first to be recognized, being awarded at the Fourth Annual Western Orchid Congress in Long Beach in 1955.The following year, at the Fifth Congress held in Seattle, Mr. Ben O. Bracey was presented the medallion.

The recipients for the Orchid Digest Medal are nominated and selected by the Publication Committee. It is not a yearly award, but will be given at the discretion of the Publication Committee.

Orchid Digest Medals of Honor presented to:

1955	Robert Casamajor (First editor of the Cymbidium News)
1956	B.O.Bracey (Cattleya hybridizer, trained many hybridizers)
1959	Dr. L.F. Hawkinson (Authored ‘Orchid Activities’ in many issues of the Orchid Digest)
1960	H.G. Alexander (Discovered a tetraploid 4n cymbidium in 1911)
1962	Lester McDonald (posthumously) (Hybridizer at McClellans)
1963	Sanders of England and Belgium
1964	Joseph Hampton (Armacost & Royston-Dos Pueblos)
1968	Gordon Dillon (Editor of the Bulletin of the American Orchid Society for 31 years)
1974	Hugo Freed (Orchid hybridizer, lecturer, and founder of the Malibu Orchid Society)
1975	Ernest Hetherington (Hybridizer, Editor, Orchid Digest)
1976	Reverend Naseo Yamada (Cattleya and Vanda breeder)
1977	Herb Hager (Hybridizer)
1979	William (Bill) Eilau (ODC President-5th World Conference)
1982	J.A. Fowlie (Orchid Digest Editor and contributor 1967 – 1993)
1992	Dorothea Dirks (Secretary of the Orchid Digest Corporation for 40 years)
1994	Ben Kodama (Hybridizer, ambassador for the orchid industry in Hawai'i.)
1996	Dr. Carl Withner (Blue cattleya hybrids)
2000	Rebecca Northen (Author)
2001	Ernest Hetherington (Orchid Digest Editor, hybridizer, author, lecturer)
2003	Steve Gollis (Graphics editor extraordinaire of the Orchid Digest)
2005	Phillip Cribb (Curator of the Orchid Herbarium at KEW, author, conservationist)
2006	Lou Menenzes (Ecologist, conservationist, botanist of the Brazilian Environmental Institute, author.)
2007	Joyce Stewart (Author, lecturer, WOC organizer, managed the Sainsbury Endangered Orchid Project)
2008	Jim Watson (Editor, AOS Orchids magazine)
2008	Henry Oakeley (Author, Chair of the Orchid Committee of the RHS, lecturer)
2009	Norito Hasegawa (Hybridizer, lecturer)
2010	Harold Koopowitz (Editor Emeritus of the Orchid Digest, hybridizer, author, lecturer, conservationist )