Photos from the WFIWC Archives:
General
Ethical Practices Award. So, what was a nice sounding award like you doing after hours at WFIWC meetings from 1954-1984 trying to find a deserving recipient? For you younger ones ... the wording "Ethical Practices" is facetious.
The details of its origin are obscure and references to it in various proceedings hint at rather than document supposed beheviour (Canadian spelling intentional ... MMF) of originating recipients. According to Washburn (SLC 1974 proceedings, p 63), the first award was given to Jim Kinghorn at the 1953 meeting at Moscow-Pullman. However, the Ethical Practices Committee was established at the 1954 Berkeley meeting (proceedings, p. 57), although no record exists of it ever having been formally constituted. According to folklore, the physical emblem of the award was apparel derived from a visit with Tempest Storm backstage at the El Rey burlesque in Oakland. Proceedings of the 1980 El Paso meeting indicate that the emblem was changed. "Paul Buffam asked Dave Holland to provide new accoutrements of the office, which wore out during long years of service, for the next meeting. ... " Further, by then (1980), the membership had female representation and, indeed, " ... Faye Shon and Maxine Moyer have come up with a suitable award for female members." That evidently derived from the award actually having been earned by Molly Stock (Wemme 1976) and Moyer (Boise 1979)! Again, however, the proceedings shed little light on their standout performances.
The Committee and the award eventually ran its course as the membership and the times continued to morph. So it was that at the 1986 Victoria, B.C., meeting, they ceased to exist. Dave Holland (proceedings page 49) read a graveside poem "On retiring the Ethical Practices Award." Silver and Kinghorn, among the early instigators ... now departed, may well have smiled. Born in an atmosphere of fun and camaraderie, like all things, it had run its course to be replaced by Fun Runs and Founders Award addresses at banquets grown docile. Not at all like the one at Ogden (1960) where baked potatoes were flung across table between jovial Bongberg, Whiteside and Massey. -- Mal Furniss --
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