What do the Tony Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, and Gulf Coast Council Awards have in common? Answer: they’re among dozens of awards that have been postponed or suspended for 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the most recent GCC board of directors meeting, the board voted unanimously to suspend awards for this year. The annual awards nomination process begins April 1st and ends May 31st, which this year coincided with the peak of the pandemic shutdown. Perhaps as a result, no nominations were submitted. A proposal to delay the deadline was nixed, as some board members felt that might be unfair to some clubs and members.
The board also voted on an important change to one of the awards. The “Fly Tying Excellence Award” will be renamed (to be decided) and the criteria changed to parallel that of the Fly Fishers International “Buz Buszek Memorial Fly Tying Award”. In doing so, a provision will be added that will allow for a maximum of two awards per year, if one of the persons awarded is deceased.
Previously, only living persons at the time were nominated for the Tying Excellence Award. This has been an injustice to a couple of GCC tiers of great achievement who were never recognized with this award while they were alive.
