Clyde Landford Smith '85
(Year Awarded--1999)

Dr. Lanny Smith possesses a unique blend of intellect, passion for his profession, dogged persistence, and a profound sympathy for the human condition.

From his years at Davidson where he competed on both the varsity track and cross-country teams, this Charles A. Dana Scholar was destined to sprint his way toward effecting change. Combining his tireless energy with sagacity that belies his youth, Lanny, at the tender age of thirty-six, has improved the lives of many through his unyielding commitment to service.

While attending the Medical College of Georgia, Lanny visited Nicaragua and built Habitat for Humanity homes. He quickly developed an understanding of Central American culture and its people. This experience, where he witnessed firsthand indigence, disease, and the atrocities of civil war, impacted greatly Lanny's immediate career path.

After completing a two-year residency at Boston City Hospital and, subsequently, a fellowship at the Harvard School for Public Health, Lanny returned to Central America-this time, El Salvador. There, he spent five years as the coordinator and legal representative of Doctors of the World, a French humanitarian association that assists impoverished El Salvadoran people. In spite of severely limited financial and medical resources, he treated and worked to eradicate common diseases, developed and improved sanitation procedures, and made medicine more affordable to the general population- all this while taking time to host and to teach Davidson undergraduates visiting El Salvador for semesters abroad.

In 1995, with his commitment to healing more unwavering than ever, Lanny founded the Atlanta-based "Doctors for Global Health," an organization dedicated to "promoting health and human rights for those who have no voice."

With his organization in El Salvador now in place and so many communities there benefiting from vastly improved medical and humanitarian conditions, Lanny is now in London, continuing his education in his specialty at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Because you are dedicated to improving the lives of those in other nations who are subject to adversity and atrocity; and because you are a healer, an educator, a friend, and, above all, a humanitarian, the Davidson College Alumni Association honors you, Clyde Lanford Smith, Class of 1985, and presents you with the John W. Kuykendall Award for Community Service on this day, May 7, 1999.