Dooley, Whiteside to be honored

Congressman Cal Dooley of Fresno is this year’s recipient of the Rose Ann Vuich Ethical Leadership Award, the Kenneth L. Maddy Institute announced. A luncheon honoring Dooley will be held on Thursday,
Sept. 16.

Mark Keppler, executive director of the Maddy Institute at Fresno State, said nominees are judged on integrity, strength of character, exemplary social behavior, ability to build consensus, serving the public interest and vision for enhancing the community.

The Vuich Award will be presented along with the Excellence in Public Service Award at the 2004 Awards Luncheon on Sept. 16 at the Robert A. Schoettler Conference Center/Radisson Hotel in downtown Fresno. Carol Whiteside, president of the Great Valley Center in Modesto, will receive the public service award.

Dooley is serving his seventh term as a Member of Congress, representing the 20th District of California. He is a fourth-generation San Joaquin Valley farmer and partner in Dooley Farms of the Hanford-Visalia area. He serves on the House of Representatives' Committees on Agriculture and Resources, and serves as ranking minority member on the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry.

In addition to his committee assignments, Dooley is a co-founder and Executive Council Board Member of the New Democrat Coalition, a group of centrist, pro-growth Congress members who are working to find mainstream, bipartisan solutions to our nation's problems.

Vuich Award selection committee member Coke Hallowell said it is particularly appropriate that Congressman Dooley be recognized with the award, as he served as a top aide to the late senator in the latter part of her career.

“He has always shared and exemplified her standards of political ethics and I know how proud she would be to have him so honored,” said Hallowell.

A letter in support of Dooley’s nomination noted, “After a decade in the House of Representatives, he was recently named by the nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly as one of the twenty most influential members of the House. Many of us have long admired his willingness to reach across the political aisle to get things done for the Valley, as well as his calm demeanor and his measured temperament that is often lacking in today’s political discourse.”

The Rose Ann Vuich Ethical Leadership Award is sponsored by The Maddy Institute, The Fresno Business Council and The Fresno Bee.

Past recipients of the award include Sharon Levy (1998); Valeriano Saucedo (1999); Gail Hanhart McIntrye (2000) Pete Mehas (2001) Juan Arambula (2002) and Marcelyn Buford (2003).

The Maddy Institute was established in 1999 by the California Legislature in honor of State Senator Ken Maddy, whose 28 years of public service demonstrated the successful application of personal integrity, legislative know-how and bipartisanship to the governance of the State of California.

The institute provides practical training for local officials and civic leaders, fellowships for Fresno State students in local state and federal agencies and non-profit organizations, as well as symposia and extension courses on a range of topics relating to public policy and public administration.

For more information about the 2004 Rose Ann Vuich Ethical Leadership Awards Luncheon, contact the Maddy Institute at 8-0831.