Kissingers, Erburus Receive Awards
Impassioned pleas stressing the importance of rearing children to be responsible leaders of the future took the limelight at the Hugh O’Brian Youth Foundation’s Albert Schweitzer Leadership Awards Dinner on Thursday evening.
More than 750 prominent business leaders and their spouses gathered at the Beverly Hilton to see Nancy and Henry Kissinger (president, Kissinger Associates Inc., and former U.S. secretary of state) and Lois and Robert Erburu (chairman and CEO, Times Mirror Corp.) receive the Schweitzer awards.
Lois Erburu, first to accept, praised teachers and noted, “I am not sure any of us should ever stop being teachers.”
Said Bob Erburu: “San Francisco reminded us that tomorrow doesn’t always come. One thing that society has been putting off is its children.” Calling children “a sacred trust,” Erburu also stressed that people must not emphasize too highly the title on the door, but treasure “family, friends and faith.”
Introducing the Kissingers, Robert A. Day, chairman of Trust Company of the West, quipped: “Without Nancy, I don’t think Henry would have done as well as he has done.” Nancy Kissinger said she was delighted to accept the award and deferred to her husband’s comments.
Kissinger recalled his youth in Nazi Germany as a member of a minority. He said, “The individual, through the force of events, is moving into center stage.” And he added, “Roads are made by walking. Your kids (Hugh O’Brien Youth Foundation children) are walking a road to what should be and must be a more peaceful world.”
Actor Hugh O’Brian’s foundation, launched 31 years ago after he met Schweitzer, now provides 86 HOBY leadership seminars for 12,500 high school sophomores, representing schools in 50 states, Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas.
In the Who’s Who crowd: the three co-dinner chairmen--A. W. Tom Clausen, chairman, BankAmerica Corp.; actor James Stewart; and Day. (Clausen’s wife, Peggy, confirmed that her husband brought home three secretaries in need of housing the night of the San Francisco earthquake.)
Kissinger warmly greeted former U.S. Atty. Gen. William French Smith and his wife, Jean, and Margaret M. Brock. More mingling were Los Angeles Times publisher David Laventhol and his wife, Esther; Marvin and Barbara Davis; Lod and Carole Cook; Walter and Darlene Gerken; Gerald and Virginia Oppenheimer; Michael R. Milken; Richard Riordan; and Ray Watt.
