O'Connor House Announces First Community Leadership Awards

PHOENIX, March 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Diane Halle and Don Budinger will be awarded the first O'Connor House Community Leadership Awards, Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at the Supreme Evening of Jazz.   The annual event supports O'Connor House.  These awards are given to recipients who have, without expectation of recognition, generously supported the mission of the O'Connor House with their contribution of time, talent and/or resources to move O'Connor House programming from inception to action.

Diane Halle is President of the Bruce T. Halle Family Foundation and the Herbert K. Cummings Charitable Trust.  She is chairman of the Bruce T. Halle Family Foundation Scholarship Program and the Discount Tire Regional Philanthropy program, Driven to Care.   Halle champions women and children's issues, educational initiatives, integrative medicine and medical research, and the arts.  She is a member of the TGen Foundation, Catholic Community Foundation, The Art Institute of Chicago Committee on Contemporary Art, the Arizona State University Foundation and the International Women's Forum.  Her numerous awards for her strategic and collaborative philanthropic endeavors include the Arizona region of the Anti-Defamation League's Torch of Liberty Award, Childhelp USA Spirit of Children and Papal Investiture – Dame Commander of the Order of St. Gregory.  Diane's generous commitment to establish the Diane Halle Center for Family Justice at the ASU Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law is vital to turning the vision of the O'Connor House Domestic Violence project into reality.

Don Budinger is a founder and the former President of Rodel, Inc., a garage start up that became the world's largest manufacturer of the surface finishing chemicals used to make computer chips, rigid memory disks and specialty optics. When Rodel was sold in 1999, The Rodel Foundations was created with the goal of improving pre-kindergarten through 12th grade public education systems in Delaware and Arizona.  Don is Chairman and Founding Director of the Rodel Foundations, Chairman and Founding Director of Science Foundation Arizona, Co-Chair of the Coalition for Solutions Through Higher Education and a member of the Southern Arizona Leadership Council. He serves on the board of directors of the Arizona College Scholarship Foundation, Tucson Values Teachers, The Morrison Institute and Greater Phoenix Leadership, the Bioscience Roadmap and a member of the O' Connor House Advisory Committee for PolicyIssues.  In this capacity, Don's contributions to the O'Connor House good government project have been significant and essential to its success.

Tonight O'Connor House will also announce the 2010 Fellows. This award honors academics or public intellectuals who have, without expectation of recognition or remuneration, generously shared their expertise, research, analysis, and enthusiasm for O'Connor House programs to ensure that committees working on O'Connor House goals could maximize their efforts by operating from a base of current knowledge and best practices.  2010 O'Connor House Fellows are:

• Paul Schiff Berman, Dean and Foundation Professor of the Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law at Arizona State University, who provided the O'Connor House with a legal and social perspective that proved invaluable to this project;
• John Stuart Hall, Professor of Public Affairs and Public Service at the Arizona State University School of Public Affairs and Director of the Urban Data Center at the ASU Downtown Campus, whose expertise benefited the government policy committee of O'Connor House;  
• William Hart, Senior Policy Analyst for ASU's Morrison Institute for Public Policy, who provided guidance for establishing the Avon Program for Women and Justice at O'Connor House;
• Sharon Murphy, Assistant Professor at the University of New Hampshire, and formerly with the Arizona State University School of Social Work, who contributed expertise to the Domestic Violence committee;
• Richard Toon, Associate Director, Research for Morrison Institute at Arizona State University, who contributed expertise in the areas of criminal justice and issues related to family well-being.

The second annual Supreme Evening of Jazz, held at the Tempe Center for the Arts, is co-chaired by Nan Hunter Howlett and Susie Wesley.  Honorary Chairmen are Barbara Barrett and Gay Wray.

The O'Connor House project was formed in 2008 to preserve the original adobe home of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and her husband, John O'Connor, and carry on the legacy of the house as a gathering place where civil talk leads to civic action.  As the first woman elected majority leader of the Arizona State Senate in 1972, Sandra O'Connor brought many decision-makers home where they were treated to western hospitality and, often, an informal, home-cooked meal.  In a relaxed and convivial atmosphere, leaders were encouraged to reach consensus on vital issues, even reaching across party lines to write Senate bills.  Nationally, the house had significance as Justice O'Connor was interviewed there for the U.S. Supreme Court.  The home also played on the world stage since the O'Connors entertained international luminaries there.

Once it became apparent that the house could be reassembled and relocated in Tempe's Papago Park, Justice O'Connor envisioned that their home could once again be a place where people could meet to solve problems that affect Arizona and the nation.  Friends of the O'Connor House (now O'Connor House) supports both the House and its mission.

SOURCE O'Connor House