Charles A. Dukes Awards

The Duke Alumni Association (DAA) and the Annual Fund have bestowed Charles A. Dukes Awards on five alumni for outstanding volunteer service to the university. The awards, named for the late Dukes ’29, director of the alumni affairs office from 1944 to 1963, honor individuals who reflect his dedication to the university. Honorees are selected by the DAA board of directors and the executive committee of the Annual Fund.

This year’s winners are Artyn Haig Gardner ’73, Alice Matheson Stanback ’53 and Fred J. Stanback Jr. ’50, Paul S. Teller ’93, and Melvia L. Wallace ’85.

Gardner lives in Irvine, California, and has served on the DAA board and the Financial Aid Committee. She chaired and participated in the Alumni Admissions Advisory Committee (AAAC) in Orange County, California, and she and her husband, Max Gardner ’73, have hosted six send-off parties for admitted Duke students in their area.

The Stanbacks live in Salisbury, North Carolina. Fred Stanback is retired as chairman and treasurer of the Stanback Company, which originated in 1911. He also has served as a director of the Security Capital Bank Corporation and the Salisbury Community Foundation and as a trustee of Catawba College. Alice Stanback serves on the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center’s board of overseers. The Stanbacks support a number of environmental and civic organizations, including Catawba College, the Center for Public Integrity, Salisbury High School, the Sierra Club, the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition, and the Nature Conservancy. They have served on the board of advisers of the LandTrust for Central North Carolina, which the Stanback family helped establish. In 1995, they established the Stanback Internship program to provide a stipend to Nicholas School of the Environment students, enabling them to intern at nonprofit conservation organizations for the summer. Fred has served on the Duke Marine Lab advisory board and has been a member of the Nicholas School’s board of visitors for more than fifteen years.

Teller lives in Washington, D.C., where he is executive director of the U.S. House of Representatives Republican Study Committee. He was an AAAC member from 1994-2007 and is a member of the DAA board of directors. He served two years as president of the Duke Club of Washington, where he continues to be involved in club activities. He also functions as a liaison between Duke and Capitol Hill.

Wallace lives in Bowie, Maryland, where she is partner, founding member, and chief operations officer of The Austin Group, which specializes in management and leadership training and human-resources and business consulting. A member of the DAA board of directors, Wallace also has been an alumni admissions interviewer and a member of DUBAC (Duke University Black Alumni Connection).