Chairs Beth Madison and Isabel and Danny David welcomed a distinguished crowd of 330 to the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy's 2015 Prize for Excellence in Leadership Dinner at a private Houston country club recently.
After the VIP reception in a wood-paneled salon - guests included Rice University President David Leebron and Y. Ping Sun - the party moved to a ballroom for the main event. Baker Institute founding director Edward P. Djerejian took the stage to announced that the evening had already surpassed its goal of $500,000 - reaching a grand total of $740,000 for the institute's Center for Health and Biosciences.
As guests dug into the dinner's final course (lemon meringue served in martini glasses), Madison and the Davids introduced a video presentation highlighting the impressive accomplishments of honorees L.E. and Virginia Simmons Djerejian then joined the couple on stage to moderate the conversation that followed; topics included Virginia's thoughts on the future of inner-city education reform, their involvement with Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign and the duo's eponymous Family Foundation Collaborative Research Fund, which strives to solve challenging medical dilemmas by partnering with Rice, Texas Children's Hospital and the Methodist Research Institute Hospital.
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Among the attendees: James A. Baker III and Susan Baker, Charles and Anne Duncan, Peter and Nancy Olson, Cal and Hannah McNair, Daniel and Patricia Breen, Phoebe and Bobby Tudor, Anthony and Cynthia Petrello, Jeff Smisek, Margaret Williams and Linda and Walter McReynolds
