Press Release

Greater Raleigh CVB Announces Award Winners;
Dr. Larry Wheeler and Doyle Parrish Honored at Annual Luncheon

Media Contact: Martin Armes; (919) 645-2654; marmes@visitraleigh.com

RALEIGH, N.C. (July 12, 2007) – The N.C. Museum of Art's Dr. Larry Wheeler and Summit Hospitality's Doyle Parrish were honored today with major awards at the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau's 20th annual luncheon recognizing the area's billion dollar visitor industry.

 Here's a rundown of the awards and the winners:

 Thad Eure, Jr. Memorial Award
 Dr. Lawrence J. Wheeler, Director, N.C. Museum of Art

The Bureau's most prestigious award normally goes to an individual or individuals who have made major contributions to the local hospitality industry during the previous 12 months. The award is named for Eure - the late restaurateur, respected businessman and community leader.

Dr. Larry Wheeler has transformed the N.C. Museum of Art into one of the region's and the nation's most popular and dynamic centers for the visual and performing arts. During his tenure, he presided over the completion of the landmark Museum Park on the Museum grounds, and has greatly enhanced the Museum's collection of contemporary art while continuing to build on what is considered one of the finest collections of European old master paintings in the Southeast.  In 1999 and 2000, Wheeler ushered in the "era of the blockbuster shows" at the Museum with record-breaking back-to-back exhibitions, Monet to Moore and Rodin. The Rodin exhibition attracted over 300,000 people to the Museum and was the cornerstone of Festival Rodin, another of Wheeler's initiatives. Festival Rodin became the largest marketing effort for the arts in the history of North Carolina. His most recent success was the Monet in Normandy exhibition, which closed in January 2007. The exhibition attracted nearly 215,000 visitors and pumped more than $24 million into the area economy with visitors from all 50 states and all 100 North Carolina counties.

 John B. Ross, Jr. Leadership Award
 R. Doyle Parrish, President, Summit Hospitality Group

The GRCVB's John B. Ross, Jr. Leadership Award recognizes an outstanding executive management-level individual in the Wake County hospitality industry who displays exceptional leadership skills. The award is given in honor of John Ross who was the GRCVB Chairman of the Board of Directors in 1995-96. The award exemplifies the courage, leadership, dedication and inspiration that John portrayed in the hospitality industry for more than 20 years.

The 11th annual award goes to Doyle Parrish for displaying the type of leadership, vision and political acumen that left an unmistakable and positive impact on the hospitality industry during the last six years on the Bureau's Board of Directors, including two as Chairman. Over that time period and many years before, he worked tirelessly behind the scenes to build a coalition of support to gain approval to build Raleigh's new convention center, to ensure that the new convention center would be appropriately funded so that a first-class facility would open in just more than a year from now and to ensure that the new convention center would be aggressively marketed through a recently approved Business Development Fund.

The GRCVB's annual luncheon was held at the RBC Center. Business consultant Patrick McGaughey of ActivatingPeople.com delivered the keynote speech and shared entertaining insight into becoming more engaged in the area's sales and promotion process.

The Greater Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau, as the official destination marketing organization of Raleigh and Wake County, accelerates sustainable economic growth and development by increasing visitor and convention business. Through its website, VisitRaleigh.com and other tools, the GRCVB assists local visitors in a variety of ways.