{"id":4928,"date":"2011-04-16T14:14:42","date_gmt":"2011-04-16T19:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinbryant.com\/?p=4928"},"modified":"2011-04-16T14:14:42","modified_gmt":"2011-04-16T19:14:42","slug":"gene-rich-awarded-the-order-of-the-palmetto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/gene-rich-awarded-the-order-of-the-palmetto\/","title":{"rendered":"Gene Rich awarded the Order of the Palmetto"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anderson Independent Mai<\/a>l – ANDERSON \u2014 When Sen. Kevin Bryant told Linvil G. \u201cGene\u201d Rich that Gov. Nikki Haley had awarded him the state\u2019s top honor, the Order of the Palmetto, Rich was stunned but cracked a joke immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you tell her I\u2019m a Yankee?\u201d Rich said, causing his friends to erupt in laughter.<\/p>\n

Rich awarded Order of the Palmetto<\/p>\n

Bryant presented the honor to Rich on Friday in the Anderson Area YMCA\u2019s community room. The senator was joined by about 40 of Rich\u2019s friends, some of them members of the YMCA\u2019s morning coffee club. Rich was also accompanied by his wife, Molly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour entire career and life have been marked by trying to make South Carolina better,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n

The Order of the Palmetto is considered the highest civilian honor in the state of South Carolina. The first Order of the Palmetto was awarded in 1971 by Gov. John C. West. It recognizes a person\u2019s lifetime achievements and contributions to the state.<\/p>\n

Any South Carolinian can nominate someone for the Order of the Palmetto, but the governor is the one who makes the final decision on who will receive the honor. In the past 40 years, more than 3,500 people have received the Order of the Palmetto, according to the state\u2019s Department of Archives and History.<\/p>\n

The award was given to Rich to honor a lifetime of work that the native of Illinois put into the engineering field, particularly environmental engineering. Rich served as the head of Clemson University\u2019s civil engineering department for a year in 1960 and then was named dean of the university\u2019s College of Engineering, a position he held until 1972.<\/p>\n

But his largest accomplishments were made in the environmental engineering field, a program that he started at Clemson. From 1972 until 1987, Rich served as a professor of environmental engineering at Clemson University.<\/p>\n

Now, his resume is so extensive at Clemson University that the university\u2019s environmental research lab is named after him. He also the author of five books and more than 50 technical papers and founder of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors, according to Clemson University\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

That list of accomplishments plus his sense of humor and humble personality is what made Rich so deserving of the award, his friends and a former student said.<\/p>\n

Steve Graef, a former student of Rich\u2019s, attended the ceremony. He said he attended Clemson University because of Rich\u2019s reputation in the environmental engineering field.<\/p>\n

Graef attended Clemson from 1967 until 1971 and earned his doctorate there.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was using biology, chemistry and physics to take dirty water and turn it into clean water,\u201d Graef said. \u201cHe was a leader in the field. And he was always so accessible to the students. Because of that, we all had so much respect for him in the classroom. He really challenged us to excel, and he mentored us, and helped us develop our careers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the midst of all his success, Rich\u2019s friends said, the professor remained humble and jovial. Joe Drennon, who is the director of the Anderson YMCA, said he and several others wrote letters nominating Rich for the award.<\/p>\n

Rich has been a longtime member at the YMCA and spends a lot of time there, socializing with other members at the YMCA\u2019s morning coffee club. Just two weeks ago, Rich\u2019s group of friends at the YMCA celebrated his 90th birthday with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s such an intellectual,\u201d Drennon said. \u201cBut he can talk anybody\u2019s language.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anderson Independent Mail – ANDERSON \u2014 When Sen. Kevin Bryant told Linvil G. \u201cGene\u201d Rich that Gov. Nikki Haley had awarded him the state\u2019s top honor, the Order of the Palmetto, Rich was stunned but cracked a joke immediately. \u201cDid you tell her I\u2019m a Yankee?\u201d Rich said, causing his friends to erupt in laughter. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2gEQ0-1hu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}