In a world where awards and plaques are as common as April daffodils, I occasionally notice one that catches my attention. That’s what happened the other day when I read a list of finalists for the 2014 Torch Awards presented each year in honor of commitments made by businesses to ethical practices, which radiate through their employees to customers and across their communities.
In this day of maximizing profits (and when ethical principles have become an afterthought across much of society) it’s downright refreshing to see the Better Business Bureau of Arkansas honoring those who go above and beyond to promote character and high standards.
And I smiled a little broader when I saw three of the finalists (of some 30 nominations statewide) for the four 2014 awards are headquartered in Northwest Arkansas. The finalists: MDA Central Casting Studios of Fayetteville; Main Street Service Center of Harrison; Bud Anderson Heating and Cooling of Lowell; Arvest Bank, based in Bentonville; McCormick Works Inc. and Lewis and Company Construction, both of Little Rock; and Window Mart in Royal. Winners will be selected from each of four categories based on the number of employees ranging from one to over 175.
Mary Glancy, who directs the Arkansas BBB’s Center for Character Ethics, which administers the Torch Awards, said the recognition goes to the top businesses that intentionally pursue ethics as a matter of practice. The sound concepts behind ethical behavior create high character, competency and the most vital of all qualities, trust.
This whole idea behind Torch Awards spread nationally after originating in 1994 with the BBB of Columbus, Ohio. The idea has since spread to include dozens of BBBs nationwide honoring business ethics.
The annual International Torch Awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., recognizes companies competing in North America. Arkansas’ four winners will be entered in that competition.
“All these programs help train individual business leaders to intentionally commit to leadership ethics and ethical enterprising,” said Glancy. “The award embodies the BBB Center’s mission of advancing marketplace trust.” In other words, winners of the crystal Torch Award are those who, in the opinion of the independent judges from the business and education community, others will want to emulate. The awards will be presented May 8 at a luncheon at the Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock.
Seems to me that this particular honor (and the positive messages it applauds) is one well-worth striving to earn.
Common thread
About 500 junior and senior high school students from across Arkansas gathered at the Gene Durand Center in Harrison on Wednesday to hear different speakers share a common theme about human relationships that’s as ancient as holy scriptures.
The evening before, at least 300 visitors and city residents joined in a procession through the downtown square to bury a wooden casket symbolizing racial hatred. The following day those students were joined by many more for the Nonviolence Youth Summit sponsored by the Arkansas Martin Luther King Commission and the state Department of Human Services.
Equally supportive was the community of Harrison, its Community Task Force on Race Relations, and the businesses of that predominately white city, all of whom welcomed the guests with open arms and hearts.
In the news account of the next day’s summit by ace reporter Bill Bowden, I noticed that three speakers left a similar thread of advice with the young attendees when it came to erasing hate from human hearts.
Author Arno Michaelis, who described himself as a former “racist skinhead,” said it took an unexpected act as simple as the smile and unconditional kindness of a black woman behind the counter at a McDonald’s in the 1980s to reverse his misguided beliefs.
“I’m trying to hate black people and here’s this black woman smiling at me. I can’t really hate her when she’s smiling like that,” he said.
On another visit, the same woman asked about the swastika tattooed on Arno’s middle finger. He told her it was nothing. But she’d looked at him and replied, “I know that’s not who you are. You’re a better person than that.” And from then on, the boy’s perspectives began to radically change, and he penned his book, My Life after Hate.
Daryl Davis, a black author from Maryland, advised students to listen to views expressed by adversaries and afford them the respect they believe they deserve if they hope to change opposing hearts and minds. The willingness to listen before expressing his own views in a nonthreatening manner prompted several former members of the Ku Klux Klan to leave that hate group and even hand Davis their robes, he said.
Former congressman, U.S. attorney and now presumptive GOP gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson talked of spending three days talking a white supremacist with plans for group violence into laying down his weapons. Hutchinson also quoted the late Rev. King in saying, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
The common thread is the reminder that we each should strive to treat others the way we want them to treat us while bearing in mind that it’s never wrong, or a mistake, to do the next right thing.
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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
Editorial, Pages 83 on 04/06/2014