South Carolina Humanities is pleased to announce the 2020 recipients of the Governor’s Awards in the Humanities and the Fresh Voices in the Humanities Award. Established in 1991, the Governor’s Awards celebrate the Palmetto State’s most ambitious humanities academics and advocates. SC Humanities recently introduced the Fresh Voices in the Humanities Awards as a way to recognize innovative individuals who use culture and history to bring people together, but whose efforts may have gone relatively unnoticed beyond their own community.
The 2020 recipients of the Governor’s Awards in the Humanities are Billy Keyserling, Robin Waites, Barbara Williams Jenkins, and Jon Tuttle. As the longtime Mayor of Beaufort, Billy Keyserling has led collaborative cultural and environmental initiatives designed to educate the public and mobilize the community for the common good. Robin Waites, Executive Director of Historic Columbia, established an expansive community engagement program in Richland County and has worked with local partners on a number of major historic preservation projects. Barbara Williams Jenkins has championed historic preservation efforts in Orangeburg, from identifying key sites to hosting preservation workshops to her work establishing the South Carolina State College Historic District and more. Jon Tuttle is a Distinguished Professor of English, Director of University Honors, and the Nellie Cooke Sparrow Writer-in-Residence at Francis Marion University in Florence, where he has coordinated such events as the Beyond Mother Emanuel Symposium; a visit from the Moving Wall Vietnam War memorial; and many touring play productions, lectures, and readings.
The 2020 recipient of the Fresh Voices in the Humanities Award is Caroline DeLongchamps. As the Manager of Patient-and-Family-Centered Care for the Medical University of South Carolina Health System, Caroline DeLongchamps has created opportunities for MUSC to apply the humanities in a practical sense and impact the lives of patients, families, clinicians, and students through such initiatives as the Patient Story Workshop and Patient Story Library. She serves on the Humanities Program Leader Committee and the Hospital Ethics Committee.
The virtual Governor’s Awards in the Humanities Award Ceremony will be held on YouTube on Thursday, October 22. Details about the virtual event will be announced soon. To stay in the loop about this year’s virtual ceremony, please subscribe to our email list or RSVP to the Facebook event. For full biographies of the award winners, please visit https://schumanities.org/annualevents/govawards/.
The mission of SC Humanities is to enrich the cultural and intellectual lives of all South Carolinians. Established in 1973, this 501(c) 3 organization is governed by a volunteer 20-member Board of Directors comprised of community leaders from throughout the state. It presents and supports literary initiatives, lectures, exhibits, festivals, publications, oral history projects, videos and other humanities-based experiences that directly or indirectly reach more than 250,000 citizens annually.
