Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 6, 1993 TAG: 9309100375
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Paxton Davis
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It happened in Roanoke this week when the Arts Council of the Blue Ridge bestowed its Perry F. Kendig Award for Outstanding Support of the Arts to the Davidson family of Roanoke: Sigmund and Harriet Davidson, and their sons Larry and Steve and their wives Jane and Sherry Davidson.
The Davidsons are familiar figures in Roanoke for many reasons, of course, but they have been especially generous with time and money in supporting the various artistic activities of the community, some of them on the ropes from time to time. But the Davidsons were always there.
It has not been and is not always thus, sad to say. The United States is so bemused with awards and honors and prizes and ceremonies of recognition that you can hardly turn on the telly without encountering one or another ``gala'' consuming three deadly hours of air time while this or that generally consistent nonentity is hymned for such achievements as living to 70, crossing the street without incident or simply outlasting the competition.
We are a nation of romantics awash in a world of mythomania, and one of our most beloved myths is that our recognition of value is unerring. So we elevate baseball players, country singers and unemployed actors of otherwise unfailing mediocrity to pantheons of immortality. We give them benefits, television shows, hang medals on them and send them back to the obscurity in which they languish. Thus do we attach worth to the worthless.
Yet at the same time we ignore and frequently let starve - both figuratively and literally - many of our greatest achievers in academia and the arts, unable to recognize their merits. One need only look at the writers and scientists who have f+inoto won the Nobel Prize and whose accomplishments were only recognized after their deaths.
It is thus a pleasure to realize that the generosity and good sense of Sigmund and Harriet Davidson and their family have not gone unappreciated after all. The Kendig award, named for the late president of Roanoke College, has been given annually since 1985 to such individuals as John Will Creasy, Victoria Bond and Milton Granger and to such institutions as Dominion Bankshares, the Grandin Theater and this newspaper, in every case to play a special light upon the contributions to local arts of one person or another institution.
But the generosity of entire families has gone unheralded until now, so the award to the Davidsons breaks new ground.
Sigmund Davidson is a man almost everyone in Roanoke is bound to know. He grew up here, attended Jefferson High School and graduated from Roanoke College, went off to World War II and upon his return joined his father in the management of Davidson's. His name is associated with almost every good work the Roanoke Valley can boast, and he is a kind and lovable man to boot.
It is of Harriet Davidson that I would speak further, however, for she has been less often hailed than her husband. Here I must be, for a moment, personal. She and I grew up a block apart, in Winston-Salem, N.C., and went through most of our school days in the same grade, class and even homeroom. I still remember with special clarity the day she joined the Wiley School fifth-grade homeroom of Miss Mattie Richard, a teacher of formidable gifts who asked a great deal of her charges. Harriet was moving over from the Old West End elementary school, and we were ready to razz her.
The razzing, if any, must have been brief, for she turned out to be - as she remained - the brightest and best-spirited member of what was, in fact, a bright class. She and I became immediate friends and stayed that way. She helped me run my puppet show. She was my first date. I may have been hers. I liked her but detested girls on principle, and said nothing. I was a pill but she tolerated me.
Anyway, there they are, and they got their just desserts, and who can be anything but pleased at that.
\ Paxton Davis is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB