The Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium honored U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, presenting him with its annual Franklin Fairbanks Award, which recognizes “outstanding achievements by an individual that have significantly enriched regional or national awareness and understanding of our cultural heritage or the natural world.” The museum established the award in the name of its founder in 1988. The first recipient was Senator Leahy’s longtime partner representing Vermont in the Senate, U.S. Senator Robert Stafford.
Leahy is the longest-serving Senate Regent on the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents, the governing board of the world-renowned complex of museums, research facilities and historical collections, headquartered in the Nation’s Capital.