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March 9, 2004

Three Win NC State’s Watauga Medal for Distinguished Service

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(from left) Claude E. McKinney, Bryce R. Younts, Edward E. Hood

A former trustee, a dean emeritus and a veteran Alumni Relations director were awarded prestigious Watauga Medals by North Carolina State University on Monday, March 8, for their distinguished service to the university.

Edward E. Hood, Claude E. McKinney and Bryce R. Younts received the 2004 Watauga Medals, the highest nonacademic honor bestowed by NC State, at the university’s Founders’ Day Dinner on campus. Chancellor Marye Anne Fox presented the awards.

Edward E. Hood, an NC State alumnus, served on the university’s Board of Trustees from 1995 to 2003, chairing the development committee, and is a current member of the executive committee of NC State’s Capital Campaign. He spent his professional career at General Electric Co., and retired in 1997 as executive officer and vice chairman of the board.

Among his other contributions to the university, Hood has served as director of the NC State Endowment Board, the NC State Development Board, the NC State Engineering Foundation Board and the NC State University Alumni Association Board. He co-chaired the successful five-year Campaign for NC State Students, which raised more than $125 million, and chaired several key university search committees, including that which brought Chancellor Fox to NC State.

Hood and his wife, Kay, created the Edward E. and Kay T. Hood Scholarship Endowment, funded the John T. Caldwell/Edward E. and Kay T. Hood Endowed Scholarship and have made provision for the establishment of the Edward E. and Kay T. Hood Graduate Fellowship. Hood was recognized as a Distinguished Engineering Alumnus in 1980, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree in 1994. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and received the Aviation Week and Space Technology Laureate Award in 1996 for his contributions to global aviation and aerospace.

Claude E. McKinney, professor and dean emeritus of the School of Design (now College of Design) at NC State, served that school from 1973 to 1988, and was founding coordinator for the development of Centennial Campus, a position he held from 1984 to 2000. As Assistant to the Chancellor for Centennial Campus Development, he coordinated planning,
design and development of the successful research-oriented technology park, interacting with university professionals, design firms, private-sector developers and financial institutions, and city, county and state officials.

A 2000 recipient of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine Award, presented by then-Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., McKinney also received the Career Achievement Award for the Outstanding Research Park in 2002, given by the Association of University Related Research Parks, and is the namesake of the Claude E. McKinney Plaza on Centennial Campus, dedicated in 2001.

McKinney is a charter member of the Association of University Related Research Parks, a member of the Congress for New Urbanism, an honorary associate of the American Institute of Architects and an associate member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, among many other organizations. He serves as a current member of the Wake County Economic Development Commission, the Wake County chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, and Phi Kappa Phi of NC State, as well as numerous other boards, task forces and commissions.

Bryce R. Younts served as director for alumni relations at NC State for more than 26 years, retiring in 1992. Under his direction, alumni programs showed strong growth, with alumni membership increasing significantly through 1992. In service to the Alumni Association, he has visited each of North Carolina’s 100 counties several times, a feat which earned him the title “Mr. NC State.”

Among his achievements at the university, Younts helped establish the John T. Caldwell Merit Scholarships, one of the few in the nation financed by an alumni association and the premier scholarship at NC State at that time. He also led the Alumni Association in establishing Alumni Distinguished Professorships.

Younts is a member of Alpha Zeta, Phi Kappa Phi, Kappa Phi Kappa, Phi Eta Sigma, Gamma Sigma Delta and Blue Key honor societies at NC State. A past president of the North Carolina chapter of the Soil Conservation Society of America, he received the society’s Education Award in 1967.

For more information about the 2004 Watauga Medal winners, previous winners, and the program’s history, visit www.ncsu.edu/watauga.

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