The Family Place‘s 2018 Texas Trailblazer Co-Chairs Sunie Solomon and Amy Turner are celebrating more than the Fourth of July this week. They’ve just revealed the 2018 Texas Trailblazer.
Here are some hints:
- The 2018 Trailblazer is a guy.
- He’s already been named to Fortune Magazine‘s list of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.
- In college, he was “two-time captain of the men’s varsity basketball team, graduating as the school’s fifth all-time leading scorer.”
- His post graduate work at Duke University included his earning both his JD and MA in Public Policy and his EdD from the University of Pennsylvania.
Yup, you guessed it. The 2018 Texas Trailblazer will be Dr. Michael J. Sorrell, Paul Quinn College‘s longest-serving president in its 146-year history.
Michael’s other notable accomplishments include The Washington Monthly naming President Sorrell one of America’s 10 Most Innovative College Presidents. Michael was the 2016 recipient of both the Dallas Bar Association’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Justice Award and the Father of the Year Award for the city of Dallas. In addition to being a member of the “Root 100” (a list of the top 100 emerging leaders in America) by the Root Online Magazine, Michael has received: the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education; the A. Kenneth Pye Award for Excellence in Education from Duke University’s School of Law Alumni Association; a Distinguished Alumni Award from St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago, Illinois; the Social Innovator Award from Babson College; Luminary Award from SMU; and the TRACS Leadership Award. The Dallas Historical Society honored Michael for Excellence in Educational Administration and the NAACP, Heart House, the Dallas Furniture Bank, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dallas have also recognized him for his civic leadership.
He is a past recipient of the Dallas Urban League’s Torch for Community Leadership and both the President’s and C.B. Bunkley Awards from J.L. Turner for his outstanding contributions to the Dallas legal community. Additionally, in 2002 the Dallas Business Journal named him one of Dallas’ Forty Under 40 and in 2011, the same periodical awarded him a Minority Business Leaders Award.
Among the entities on which President Sorrell serves as a trustee or director are the Center for Minority Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania, Amegy Bank, Dallas Advisory Board of Teach for America, the Dallas Foundation, the Holdsworth Center for Educational Leadership, SMU’s Tate Lecture Series and Earth Day Texas.
On the personal side, Michael is married to Natalie Jenkins Sorrell and they have two children, Michael Augustus and Sage Louise-Sinclair.
Sponsorships and tickets are available here for the luncheon at the Omni Dallas on Wednesday, September 26.
* Photo credit: Victoria Jackson