Sharing General Principles

It’s first on every power-player’s wish list: the chance to dine with Gen. Colin L. Powell.

Two locals will do just that when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff receives the Horatio Alger Award at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington on Friday.

The Crystal Cathedral’s Rev. Robert H. Schuller and hamburger mogul Carl N. Karcher, both past recipients of the prestigious nod, will hobnob with the elite and then polish off salmon medallions with Powell and nine other award recipients--Baseball Hall-of-Famer Stan Musial among them.

After Powell is invested, he will have joined the ranks of recipients such as Bob Hope, Chuck Yeager, Carol Burnett, Gene Autry, Ronald Reagan and Rafer Johnson.

Along with businessman John C. Crean, Schuller and Karcher are Orange County’s only members of the Horatio Alger Assn. of Distinguished Americans, a 251-member powerhouse that helps provide college scholarships for needy students.

The anthem of the Virginia-based organization is “hard work, not heredity,” says its executive director, Terrence Giroux. (Here’s an award you can’t buy.)

“All members have had adversity in their lives and have persevered to make something of themselves,” Giroux says. “In turn, they give back to society.” Each year, 1,000 Americans are nominated for the award. Winners are chosen by the association’s board of directors.

Typically, the lives of award winners resemble the heroes of the rags-to-riches sagas penned by Alger, a 19th-Century author of inspirational stories for youths.

“It’s an award I really cherish because it’s a tough one to get,” says Crean, who rose from poverty on a North Dakota farm to found Fleetwood Enterprises, the largest manufacturer of recreation vehicles in the country. “You’ve got to be an all-around good guy--a good family guy. And you’ve got to have given some money away.”

When Karcher learned Powell was among this year’s winners, he sent a congratulatory note to the general, who at the time was busy with the Persian Gulf crisis. “Gen. Powell took the time to write back in longhand,” says the chairman of Carl Karcher Enterprises--owner of Carl’s Jr. restaurants. “Isn’t that beautiful?”

The 74-year-old Karcher was recognized by the association in 1979 at a black-tie bash in Miami. Crean, 65, accepted his award in Manhattan in 1987. Schuller won his brass statuette of Alger in 1989.

“I’ve had the chance to chat with Gen. Powell on several occasions,” Karcher says. “He is an outstanding gentleman.”

(According to Giroux, Powell was chosen for the award long before the war in the Persian Gulf. Powell, 54, endured an impoverished childhood in the South Bronx and went on to earn an MBA from George Washington University and a slew of commendations for his 33 years of military service.)

Schuller--who lives by his slogans “Turn your scars into stars” and “Tough times never last, but tough people do,”--has taken his ministry from the roof of a drive-in theater’s snack bar to the window-studded cathedral in Garden Grove where 18,000 people attended Easter services last month.

“The Horatio Alger Award is one of the great honors of my life,” says Schuller, 64, who was spiritual guru to John Wayne and eulogist at Lucille Ball’s funeral. “The association is just a fabulous collection of wonderful human beings who practice what I call ‘possibility thinking.’

“They don’t surrender leadership to the negative elements of society. They take advantage of the freedom in America to become everything they can be.”

What kind of advice do the three award winners offer to the young and hopeful?

“I tell them you go through periods when the sky is dark,” Schuller says, “periods when you wonder how it’s all going to turn out. But never, never, never adopt a pessimistic view. There’s no excuse for that. We all have the power to turn our time and tides around.”

Karcher agrees. “You can never give up,” says the entrepreneur who made $14.75 on his first day of hawking hot dogs. “ Can’t shouldn’t be in your vocabulary. Feel good about yourself.”

“Just go for it,” says Crean. “You can do it!”