It was so exciting last year when the first five Bammy Awards were delivered to the Academy, and we held them in our hands for the first time. In a word it was breathtaking! Holding my daughter at birth was amazing, and this was a close second. The Bammy Award that will be presented to the honorees in September was designed from its inception to be a distinctive piece of art that would match, if not exceed, the beauty and presence of an Emmy Award or Oscar. In fact, when I had the chance to compare an Emmy Award side by side with a Bammy Award, it was clear that a Bammy Award would look right at home on the same red carpet as an Emmy, Oscar or Grammy.

One person who had not yet seen or held a Bammy Award asked me, does this really matter? The short answer is yes! Why? Because symbols are among the most powerful ways we convey our deepest values, beliefs and sentiments. Every parent of a fallen soldier who receives the American flag that draped his or her loved one's coffin knows this. Many who wear crosses, red ribbons, or pay more for merchandise with a certain label know this as well. Some would say that it wasn't necessary to commission a sculptor to custom craft every Bammy Award by hand or to number each one like a work of fine art. But watch a few Bammy Awards being presented to educators, and it quickly becomes clear that this much attention to detail matters because education and educators matter this much.


Some Bammy Award Trivia

• The first Bammy Award ever presented went to PTA Leader Lesley Kowalski, recognizing parents as children's first teachers.
• Bammy Awards are 12 inches tall, made of the same material as an Oscar and are two pounds heavier than an Emmy award.
• Fourteen concentric circles are integrated in to the Bammy Award design to represent pre-school through grade 12 and the collaborative nature of education
• Some prominent Bammy Award honorees include: historian and former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch; Stanford professor Linda Darling Hammond; and veteran PBS education reporter John Merrow.
• Each Bammy Award is produced by hand and takes more than 50 hours to complete.
• Professor Linda Darling Hammond was the first to receive more than one Bammy Award.
• The Bammy Award is crafted by Michael De Medina, a Los Angeles sculptor who has produced work for the late singer Michael Jackson.
• So far a total of 27 Bammy Awards have been presented.
  

Greg Toppo, education reporter for USA Today was standing next to me backstage at last year's Bammy Awards. He saw a Bammy Award sitting on a pedestal waiting to be presented, and he picked it up, first with one hand; then quickly bringing the other hand to assist. He turned to me and said, "Wow, this is nice."



See video on how the Bammy Award is made.