The 2005 TCF Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient: Norman Corwin (INC)

The Third Coast Festival Lifetime Achievement Award (now the Audio Luminary Award) is presented annually to an individual who is greatly admired for his or her significant and ongoing contributions to the field of radio. Hats off to the 2005 recipient, Norman Corwin.

Lauded as the "poet laureate of radio," Norman Corwin is widely credited with creating some of the most important radio programs of the mid-20th century. Some of Corwin's most recognized works include "We Hold These Truths" (1941), marking the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, and "On a Note of Triumph" (1945), celebrating the conclusion of World War II in Europe, a program Carl Sandberg called "one of the all-time great American poems." Describing Corwin's influence, Ray Bradbury writes, "He taught us then not only how to open our mouths but how to insert bright pebbles beneath our tongues so that eventually we might fire forth a sentence not only worth listening to but thinking about."

Corwin has garnered every major American award for his work and in 1993 was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. He's also the author of 17 books, five stage plays, and numerous movie and TV works. Just as importantly, he has been a role model and an inspiration to many generations of radio reporters and producers. Independent producer Mary Beth Kirchner, a young colleague and friend of Corwin, calls him "a brilliant, engaging personality, the rule by which the rest of us measure our work."

Corwin returned to radio in the 1990s, working with National Public Radio to rebroadcast past work and to create new programs including a series of radio plays in 2001 called More by Corwin. At 95 years old Corwin is still keeping busy, writing for radio and teaching journalism at the University of Southern California.