For more than two decades, Junior Achievement of Dallas’ Dallas Business Hall of Fame has been honoring local business and civic leaders who’ve inspire greatness in the next generation. The collective impact of those honorees — or Laureates, as they’re called — was on fully display on Thursday, January 30, when Junior Achievement President Jan Murfield hosted the 2020 JA Hall of Fame Laureate Reception at the Nasher Sculpture Center.
In the crowd of 75 to 80 gathered in the facility’s Nasher Hall were a number of Laureates from years past. Among them were Ron Steinhart (Class of 2003), Jim Keyes (2006), Trisha Wilson (2012) with husband Jeb Terry, and Jody Grant (2013), accompanied by his wife, Sheila Grant. Presenting sponsors of the main JA HOF event — the 22nd Annual Dallas Business Hall of Fame dinner on February 29 — will be the David B. Miller Family Foundation (David was a Laureate in 2015) and Energy Transfer, whose chairman and CEO is Kelcy Warren.
Kelcy is one of three 2020 Laureates who will be inducted at the upcoming annual dinner, along with The Container Store Chairwoman/CEO Melissa Reiff and Woodbine Development Chairman John Scovell. Bobby Lyle is serving as the event chair.
The reception’s setting at The Nasher was appropriate, since the Center’s late founder Raymond Nasher was a Laureate (in 2004), as was Raymond’s daughter Nancy Nasher (in 2018). As hors d’oeuvres were passed around, guest Craig Hall was asked whether the recent news about sagging wine sales reflected what was happening at Hall Wines, the upscale California winery he and his wife Kathryn Hall own. “It’s not affecting the luxury market as much as the lower,” Craig replied. “The kids aren’t drinking” wine.
While attendees like David Johnson, Kelcy’s better half Amy Warren, John’s wife Diane Scovell, Jaylen Freeman (he’s JA’s reining Student of the Year) and Nancy’s husband David Haemisegger looked on, Nancy Nasher welcomed everyone to The Nasher before turning the mic over to Bobby, who mentioned his membership in the HOF class of 2013. “That was when I got out of graduate school,” he joked. Bobby then went on to introduce the three new Laureates with a little more humor, saying of Scovell, for example: “I was cautioned by my friend John Scovell to be nice to him, and that’s hard to do.”
The February 29 dinner, to be held in the Dallas Ballroom at the Dallas Omni Hotel, will include a reception, a silent auction and entertainment and dinner and a program. Since longtime event emcee David Johnson will be traveling in France in late February, Scott Murray will handle the onstage hosting honors in David’s absence.