The week of October 6th is a nice change from elections and football games to honor the gifts of mind and soul. The world will honor five great minds and one great soul, or at least a great-souled organization and its leader. Between October 6th and October 12th, six Nobel prizes will be awarded in Stockholm and Oslo. They honor outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, economics, and for work in peace. In a time of year when most of our attention to competition and success is focused on football, the Nobel Prizes are reminders of the value of other kinds of achievements and role models.
Alfred Nobel was an inventor, scientist and businessman who also wrote poetry and drama. He is best known as the inventor of dynamite. In 1895, he wrote his last will, leaving much of his wealth to the establishment of these prizes. The sixth prize, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was added in 1968.
With apologies to my non-South Carolina followers, I checked out the six awardees over the years with close ties to South Carolina, covering every category except literature.
Charles Townes (Physics, 1964) was a native of Greenville. Townes shared the prize for his fundamental work in quantum electronics, which led to the invention of the laser.
Joseph Goldstein (Medicine, 1985 )was born in Sumter and was in was awarded the prize for discoveries concerning cholesterol metabolism.
Kary Mullis (Chemistry, 1993) was born in North Carolina but grew up in Columbia. He won the prize for inventing the polymerase chain reaction technique.
Robert Furchgott (Medicine, 1998) was born in Charleston and was recognized for discoveries about the signaling role of nitric oxide in the cardiovascular system.
Benjamin Bernanke (Economic Sciences, 2022) was born in Georgia but grew up in Dillon, South Carolina, and received the prize for research on banks and financial crises, specifically the Great Depression. He was also chair of the Federa Reserve during the 2998 housing meltdown.He had to teach himself calculus to get into Harvard since it was not taught in Dillon County schools, and during his summers home from Boston he worked at the well-known stopping place on I95, South of the Border.
My last South Carolina honoree was born in Lamar. David Beasley, a Clemson University graduate, served as governor in 1995-99 where he presided over removing the Confederate flag from the top of the statehouse, thus losing a bid for a second term. Beasley went on to serve as executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme from2017 to 2023. He accepted the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the organization.
Looking for role models for your adolescents? Sports heroes and entertainers are fine, but so are people who achieve great things by working in their own way to make the world a better place! Share a Hero with someone during Nobel week.
