by Karen Brune Mathis
Managing Editor
Often when Andrew Rosenkranz or his associates visit Jacksonville, they come to address issues of bigotry, racism or bullying.
Their trip to town in March will be to recognize those who help fight it.
Rosenkranz is Florida regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. The national league was founded in 1913 to combat anti-Semitism, bigotry and hatred.
It is based in New York and operates 28 regional offices, including its Florida location in Boca Raton.
The Anti-Defamation League will present its Jacksonville 2011 Distinguished Service Awards during a reception 5-7 p.m. March 10 at the Hyatt Downtown. The awards presentation will be at 6 p.m.
The league will honor retired County Judge Morton Kesler and business executive and entrepreneur Delores Kesler with the Distinguished Community Service Award.
Sheriff John Rutherford will be honored with the Distinguished Public Service Award.
Rosenkranz said Judge Kesler has served on the league board for decades.
“He has been somebody who has believed strongly in the Anti-Defamation League his entire life,” said Rosenkranz.
“He is one of our people on the ground in Jacksonville.”
Rosenkranz said Delores Kesler will be recognized for “the great work she has done in the community, the tremendous strides she has made.”
Rosenkranz said Rutherford is being honored because of “the great support and cooperation from the sheriff’s office.”
He cited Rutherford’s knowledge and understanding of hate crime statutes as a primary reason for his selection.
“It’s never gone unnoticed by us that when something happens, we can call the sheriff’s office and get somebody on the phone,” said Rosenkranz.
He said the league has provided training for law enforcement, Holocaust education for teachers and anti-bullying programs in schools in Northeast Florida
“The other side of what we do has involved people who just call us with issues or racism or anti-Semitism,” he said. Rosenkranz said those calls are confidential.
“We are there to help them,” he said.
He said the league has leaders in Jacksonville who are working with the first recipients in 2009, lawyers Evan Yegelwel and Hugh Cotney.
Those and others formed a committee to create and lead this year’s awards.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida executive Mike Hightower co-chairs this year’s reception with Yegelwel and Cotney.
“Next year, it will grow,” said Rosenkranz.
In more information about the award winners, the league
said:
• Morton and Delores Kesler. The Keslers embody the values of “thoughtful philanthropy” and “a clarity of vision, social responsibility, community commitment, passion for leadership and a determination to build a future free of the injustices that plagued our past and contaminate the present.”
The league said Judge Kesler has held leadership positions in the Florida Lung Association, Jacksonville Jewish Federation, St. Vincent’s Medical Center Foundation, National Conference of Christians and Jews, River Garden Nursing Home Foundation and the Salvation Army.
He is a board member of the league.
The league said Delores Kesler is considered one of the most influential business leaders in Jacksonville. Having grown up on a chicken farm, she started her own staffing agency in 1978.
By the time she retired from the company, then called AccuStaff, it had grown to $2 billion in annual sales.
The company eventually grew into MPS Group, which has been sold to the international Adecco Group.
She founded the Delores Pass Kesler Foundation, a youth-focused organization.
The league said she has made “significant contributions of both time and resources” to causes that include United Way, Hospice, the Police Athletic League, the Spina Bifida Association, the YMCA, the Mayo Clinic Foundation, the University of North Florida and Easter Seals.
• Sheriff John Rutherford. Rutherford, who has lived in Jacksonville since the age of 6, is a 36-year veteran of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, said the league.
As sheriff, he developed a plan for excellence, it said, and he “maintains the philosophy that Jacksonville deserves the right officers with the right training and the right equipment, properly deployed and skillfully managed.”
The league said Rutherford hosted an intensive Anti-Defamation League training program in December for law enforcement officials on extremist hate-group activity in Florida. Representatives from the FBI, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Department of Corrections and the North Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force participated.
The league also cited his support of the Police Athletic League for focusing on youth tutoring, mentoring and providing safe activities.
The cost to attend the awards reception is $75.
For information, call (561) 988-2944 or visit www.adl.org.
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