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1946 – November 2026 · the governor's honors
The award: the Sagamore of the Wabash is the highest honor an Indiana governor regularly bestows — created by Governor Ralph F. Gates in 1946, its first certificates going to Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft and Kentucky Governor Simeon Willis at a tri-state meeting in Cincinnati, and carrying the formula that its holder is distinguished "by humanity in living, loyalty in friendship, wisdom in council, and inspiration in leadership." Its roll runs from astronauts and presidents to mayors, coaches and plant managers; Herman B Wells of Indiana University received it six times. Above it since 2006 stands the Sachem, one Hoosier a year, the state's highest single honor. Below it stand the governor's lesser certificates — Distinguished Hoosier and its kin.
The record problem, stated plainly: there is no official roll of the Sagamore to test against. The state's own description of the award says so in terms: there is no official record of the total number presented, because each governor has kept his own roll and reserved the choice of recipients to himself. A test "against the state's own list" therefore cannot be run as designed, because the state, by its own account, keeps no such list — and this section prints that fact rather than dress a weaker search as a stronger one. The test that could be run was run: the fullest public roll of recipients, compiled from the governors' own announcements, was searched name by name for every documented public resident of this ground — Beardsley, Parseghian, Harrelson, Dvorak, Donnelly, Yakym, Cave, Ganus, Fox — and the press of record was searched beside it. No recipient seated on this ground was found, for the Sagamore or for the Sachem. The line prints as a tested negative AT THAT STRENGTH — the public roll and the press, not the governors' private rolls — with the settling source named for any future correction: the rolls kept by each administration in the governor's office, which no public instrument in.
The county line: St. Joseph County bestows no standing civilian honor roll of its own in the record reached, and the townships bestow none; the civic-honor line of this ground is empty by structure as well as by search, and prints so once, here.
Sources:
- "Sagamore of the Wabash Award," the State of Indiana's own award description (in.gov; archived by the state's site): the award's standing as the highest the governor regularly bestows, and the sentence this entry rests on — there is no official record of the total number presented, each governor keeping his own roll.
- "List of recipients of the Sagamore of the Wabash Award," the compiled public roll from the governors' announcements (searched name by name for this ground's documented public residents, November 2026; the first presentations of 1946; the six awards to Herman B Wells; the Sachem's creation in 2006 and its early roll).
- The People leg of this build (the fame band as documented: Beardsley, Parseghian, Harrelson, Dvorak, Donnelly, Yakym, Cave, Ganus — the test set for the name search), cross-referenced.