The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
Awards and Honors · the ledger, kept from the grantors' own records
Every city keeps an informal account of the honors its people have won, and the account tends to grow in the telling. This section keeps the account the strict way: an honor is entered only when the body that gives it carries the name on its own roster or record, and the city's tie is stated at its exact strength — a birth, an upbringing, a schooling, a chair held across the city line at Notre Dame are four different facts, and the ledger does not trade one for another. South Bend's ledger is shorter than Fort Wayne's at the top and stranger in the middle: it holds one Nobel laureate, born here; two Presidential Medals of Freedom, both seated at the university in the adjoining census-designated place; a Pulitzer finalist but no Pulitzer winner, and a city newspaper whose own Pulitzer line is empty; an Oscar and Emmy winner raised here; a Rhodes Scholar born and raised here who came home to be mayor.
The Nobel tie: one laureate, born here
1995
The honor: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1995 went jointly to Edward B. Lewis, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, and Eric F. Wieschaus, for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic…
The national medals: one Humanities Medal, three empty lines
9 November 2006
The honor that stands: The National Humanities Medal for 2006 went to Mark Noll, the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, one of the nation's foremost historians of American religion.…
The Pulitzer record: a finalist born here, an empty line for the paper
2004
The paper's line, empty: The South Bend Tribune, the city's newspaper since the nineteenth century, holds no Pulitzer Prize. The Pulitzer record carries no win for the paper and no named finalist; the city's journalism has been…
The Rhodes Scholarship: Pete Buttigieg, who came home
2005
The honor: The Rhodes Scholarship — the oldest international scholarship in the world, tenable at the University of Oxford — went in the American election for 2005 to a South Bend native who had just graduated from Harvard: Pete…
The Academy Awards: Sydney Pollack, raised here
1969 — 2008
The record: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gives this city one name, at the raised-here strength, and it is the biggest name on the ledger's screen page. Sydney Pollack — born in Lafayette on 1 July 1934, raised…
The Emmy record: two wins, one nomination, and one claim that fails
1966 — 2008
The wins: The Television Academy's own record for Sydney Pollack reads: five nominations, two Emmys. The first win came at the start of his career — Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Drama for 1966, for an episode of Bob…
The Grammy record: three nominations for a band built elsewhere
1965 — 2002
The record: The Recording Academy's ledger for this city is one act and one recording. Jr. Walker & the All Stars received three Grammy Award nominations and won none: "Shotgun" for Best Rhythm and Blues Recording (1965); "What…
The Tony record: an empty line
1947 — the present
The test: The Tony Awards, Broadway's honors since 1947, give this city no name. No performer born in South Bend, raised here, or formed here stands on the Tony record as a nominee or a winner; the line is printed empty at its…
State honors: the Sagamore of the Wabash, a documented sample
The 1940s — 2019
The honor and its limit: Indiana's highest civilian honor is the Sagamore of the Wabash, created in the 1940s under Governor Ralph Gates and given by each governor, on his own judgment, ever since. The state publishes no complete…
The city's own key: the documented presentations
1997 — 2024
The honor and its limit: The Key to the City is South Bend's own ceremonial honor, given by the mayor, and the city publishes no roll of its recipients. What follows is the documented record — the presentations the press and the…
The South Bend Community Hall of Fame: carried in the halls
1986 — the present
The cross-reference: The city's standing civic honor, the South Bend Community Hall of Fame, was begun in 1986 by the South Bend Alumni Association and elects those who lived and worked in South Bend for at least ten years; its…
The city's own: All-America City, twice
1967 · 2011
The honor: The honors above belong to people. The National Civic League's All-America City Award belongs to the city itself, and the League's own winners list gives South Bend two years: 1967 and 2011. The award, the nation's…
Municipal excellence and the tree designation, at their true size
2002 — the present
The smaller designations: Two lesser institutional honors complete the city's own page, printed at the small size they honestly carry. The National League of Cities gave South Bend its Gold Award for Municipal Excellence in 2002…