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Kleinpeter Press Release
Friends of LPB to honor five Louisiana Legends on May 1, 2008
(Baton Rouge, LA, February 25,2008) WWII veteran, U.S. Air force pilot, Commandant of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces Lt. Gen. John Spencer Hardy; Emmy award-winning film and television actress Lynn Whitfield; family business owner, philanthropist and historical preservationist Ben Kleinpeter; former Surgeon General of the U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. E. Ratcliffe Anderson, Jr., MD; and Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Tony Kushner will be honored at the Eighteenth Annual Louisiana Legends Awards Gala and Auction hosted by Friends of Louisiana Public Broadcasting (LPB) and by Gov. and Mrs. Bobby Jindal, honorary co-chairs, on Thursday, May 1, 2008.
The event, held at the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge, honors the best and brightest of Louisiana’s sons and daughters who have distinguished themselves in a variety of disciplines and have brought honor to the state.
Born in Logansport, La., Lt. Gen. Hardy served as chief of operations for the Army Air Forces in the Mediterranean during World War II. He participated in the planning for air offensives against Southern Europe, the Balkans and the Allied landings in Southern France in 1944. Hardy was appointed as commander, Allied Air Forces Southern Europe in 1966. He later served as Commandant of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, the highest level of the nation's military educational system, at Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC. His military decorations include both Army and Air Force Distinguished Service Medals, Legion of Merit with two oak leaf clusters, Belgian Croix de Guerre with Palm, Royal Hellenic Order of King George I, among others.
Baton Rouge native Lynn Whitfield is best known for her 1991 Emmy award-winning performance as entertainment pioneer Josephine Baker in the film The Josephine Baker Story. She has appeared on such television shows as The George McKenna Story (1986) with co-star Denzel Washington, Oprah Winfrey’s The Women of Brewster Place (1989) and The Cosby Mysteries (1994) alongside Bill Cosby. Her film works include A Thin Line Between Love and Hate (1996), Eve's Bayou (1998), and more recently The Cheetah Girls (2003) and The Cheetah Girls 2 (2006). She is the recipient of an Emmy, two Image Awards and a Black Reel Award, among others.
Committed to serving the citizens of Louisiana with local, quality products; Ben Kleinpeter is the third generation owner of Kleinpeter Farms Dairy, L.L.C, which began in 1913. The farm currently milks over 700 cows daily to meet the needs of Louisiana residents. Kleinpeter, born and raised in Baton Rouge, is a philanthropist, giving to various local charities and scholarship funds.
His efforts to preserve the Kleinpeter House, built by his grandfather in 1850, to its original state landed the home on the National Register of Historic Places. A lover of Louisiana history and its preservation, Kleinpeter has collected Louisiana antiques and donated many of them to Louisiana museums. His efforts to preserve the historic Kleinpeter Indian mounds that were threatened with destruction due to the development of the Country Club of Louisiana in Baton Rouge, is largely the reason those mounds are still intact today. Kleinpeter was a 2002 Farmer of the Year Nominee. Kleinpeter and his late wife, Jay, instilled in their seven children their respect for the environment and taught them the importance of conservation. When the St Helena Parish dairy farm was built, Kleinpeter Farms installed state of the art conservation practices without being required to by any government agency. The Louisiana Wildlife Federation cited those practices in naming the company Louisiana’s Conservation Corporation of the Year in 2007.
For its humane treatment of cows, Kleinpeter Farms received a rare certification from the American Humane Association. Kleinpeter Farms recently built Louisiana’s only ice cream plant and began selling ice cream. The plant was built with state of the art, energy efficient features designed to protect the environment while producing quality ice cream.
Baton Rouge native Lt. Gen. E. Ratcliffe “Andy” Anderson, Jr., MD served as the U.S. Air Force surgeon general from 1994-1997. Following retirement, he served as Dean of Medicine at the University of Missouri – Kansas City, CEO of the American Medical Association in Chicago and Professor of Medicine at Loyola University (Stritch) School of Medicine. His military decorations include two Distinguished Service Medals, two Distinguished Flying Crosses and 10 Air Medals.
Tony Kushner of Lake Charles is best known for his Pulitzer Prize winning play, Angels in America. Kushner also wrote the screenplay of the play for Mike Nichols’ film adaptation. He is also co-author of the screenplay of the 2005 film Munich, which was directed by Steven Spielberg and earned Kushner an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, an Emmy Award and an Oscar nomination, among other honors.
The Louisiana Legends Gala will feature a champagne reception and buffet, a silent auction, music and an awards ceremony.
Begun in 1990, the Louisiana Legends Gala is a fundraising and public awareness project that draws support and participation across the state from citizens who appreciate the many fine instructional, educational and cultural programs LPB provides.
Major sponsors for the event, known as Gala Benefactors and Gala Stars, include CHRISTUS Health, Louisiana Lottery Corporation, Kleinpeter Farms Dairy, LLC, JPMorgan Chase Bank and Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana.
For more information on the gala and/or to order tickets, contact Fleur Williams at 800.272.8161 ext. 4227 or 225.767.4227 in the Baton Rouge area or send an e-mail to fwilliams@lpb.org.
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Kleinpeter Farms Dairy, L.L.C.
14444 Airline Highway
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70817
(225) 753-2121
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