The Marie Award Board of Directors is pleased to announce that it will be awarding the 2010 Marie to State Senator Joyce Elliott.

 

The Marie Award Board includes the Rev. Stephen Copley, Arkansas Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert Brown, Rabbi Gene Levy, Derrick Williams , Esq., and Sara Wacaster.  The Board has chosen IMMIGRATION: THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS TO ARKANSAS as the theme for the 2010 Marie Award. 

 

The Marie Award Board appointed a Steering Committee which chose Senator Elliott for this honor.  This Steering Committee includes Rabbi Gene Levy, Rev. Stephen Copley, Paul Charton, Esq., Bishop Anthony Taylor, Dr. Andre Guerreo, Lee Gordon, Dr. Eddie Ochoa, Rev. Wendell Griffen, Charles Cervantes, Penelope Sur and Michel Leiderman.

 

The centerpiece of The Marie Award event will be a panel discussion examinig the economic benefits of immigration from the perspective of Education, Corporations, Cultural competency, Health Care, Economics and Entrepreneurism.

 

The 2010 Marie Award event will be on Sunday, May 9^th  (Mother's Day) beginning at 2:30 p.m. with a reception and the main event beginning at 3:00 p.m.   It will be held at the Temple B'nai Israel on Rodney Parham Road in Little Rock.

 

During two separate legislative sessions, Marie Civic Leadership Award Recipient State Sen. Joyce Elliott has sponsored legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants who attended high school in Arkansas to receive in-state tuition rates.   Though both bills failed to pass, Sen. Elliott's championing of the immigration issue remains. Originally, the bill was supported by Gov. Mike Huckabee.   Her position was opposed by many anti-immigration advocates.

 

In 2005, Elliott introduced HB1525, which would provide in-state tuition prices to undocumented immigrants if they attended high school in Arkansas for no fewer than three years, graduated from an Arkansas high school or received a general education development diploma and had been admitted to an institution of higher learning. "The idea behind this is to provide opportunity for kids," Elliott said. Though HB 1525 passed the House, it was defeated by the Senate. After the bill failed 13-20, she had to be accompanied by a state Capitol policeman when she appeared on the senate floor, and it later became public that she received death threats from sponsoring the bill.

 

In 2009, Elliott again filed legislation to grant in-state tuition to the children of undocumented immigrants.  "We're going to have to decide, are we doing to take definitive steps to challenge what is out there in the interest of these kids and our state or are we just going to acquiesce?" Elliott said.  Despite receiving support from University of Arkansas at Fayetteville chancellor David Gearhart, the bill failed in the Senate.

 

"The bottom line is this: they are in our state. They are not leaving," Elliott said. "We can choose to have them here as educated people, or we can choose to have them here as folks that we deny an education to. That's our choice."

 

The Marie Website

 

 

The Marie Award recognizes outstanding Arkansans who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of the public interest by word, action, and example through interfaith engagement and civic service over a number of years.

 

In establishing this award and its accompanying colloquium, Marie Spitzberg's children and grandchildren and her friends wish to encourage the growth in Arkansas of interfaith civic engagement through partnerships committed to solving important problems facing the state. By recognizing leaders who mobilize people of different faiths and members of different civic groups to address important social issues, we wish to make the importance of interfaith civic activity more visible and celebrate those whose lives illustrate the highest level of interfaith achievement.

 

By sponsoring colloquia that bring together people of different faiths and members of different civic groups around important problems, we wish to empower interfaith civic problem solving. By having the Arkansas Interfaith Conference administer the initiative, we wish to encourage the premier interfaith organization in Arkansas to enhance its visible leadership role in encouraging more interfaith interaction.

 

Past Award Recipients Include:

2009 - Former U.S. Senator David Pryor

2008 - Trinity Episcopal Church

           Bethel AME Church

2007 - Grainger Williams

2006 - Jim Davis

2005 - Mimi Dortch

 

Marie Spitzberg's own personal role in interfaith understanding and civic activity establishes the standard for evaluating lifetime accomplishment. Her decades of exemplary voluntary service through her teaching at Temple B'nai Israel, activity through the St. Vincent and Baptist Hospital Auxiliaries, leadership in Scouting, tutoring in the use of computers by seniors through Seniornet, service at the Little Rock Visitor's Bureau and participation at the Shepherd Center illustrate the lifetime achievement that The Marie is intended to celebrate.