AIS Board of Directors Award

The AIS Board of Directors Award is an award given to an iris that has had an extraordinary influence on iris breeding but never received the highest AIS award, the Dykes Medal. The award was established in 1972, discontinued in 2008, and reinstated at the July 24, 2019 Board teleconference.

Winners of the AIS Board of Directors Award

Year	Iris	Type	Hybridizer
2021	'Chubby Cheeks'	SDB	Paul Black
1987	'White Swirl'	SIB	Fred Cassebeer
1975	'Tobacco Road'	TB	Rudolph Kleinsorge
1973	'Snow Flurry'	TB	Clara Rees

'Chubby Cheeks' was awarded the Board of Directors Award in 2021. The Nomination Report by Gary White, Honorary Awards Chair, lays out its qualifications.

'White Swirl' received an Honorable Mention award in 1957. In 1961 Ben Hager wrote “This one (White Swirl) is such an advance that it doesn’t look like a Siberian Iris …. almost …. The Morgan Award should be revived for this one alone if necessary”, and in 1962 'White Swirl' did in fact receive this award (then the equivalent of an Award of Merit) which had not been given since 1954. Even more impressive, in 1987, 12 years after Mr. Cassebeer’s death, it received the AIS Board of Directors Award given to an iris that has had an extraordinary influence on iris breeding but never received the highest AIS award, the Dykes Medal.

From the World of Irises posting "Siberian Irises: The Greatest of Them All – White Swirl", Bob Hollingworth, February 25, 2019. Retrieved January 27, 2020.

'Tobacco Road' received the award in 1975. Its merits were described in an article in the Bulletin April 1976, pages 20-22.

For the other winners see Honorary Awards of The American Iris Society by Claire Barr and Dr. Harold Stahly, Bulletin of The American Iris Society, July 1998, p55ff.

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Prior to the establishment of the Board of Directors Award, in 1952 the Board of Directors did award a Special Award of Merit to the iris ‘William Mohr’, AB (OB), see excerpt from meeting minutes below.

From the October 25-26, 1952 Directors' Meeting Minutes: It was resolved that in recognition of the fact that the iris William Mohr has become the progenitor of a new race of garden irises and further that these irises have reached a high place in popularity and public esteem and further that in the opinion of the Board of Directors having met in executive session in St. Louis this date, that said Board of Directors award to the iris William Mohr a Special Award of Merit.

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-- WayneMesser - 27 Jan 2020