Doubly honored
 
Winner of Chamber's inaugural George Pringle award is ... George Pringle
02/05/02
By JASON DEHART
Daily Commercial Staff Writer
 

Real estate and building tycoon George Pringle received the Leesburg Chamber of Commerce’s first-ever lifetime achievement award during the chamber’s 65th annual officer installation banquet Friday.

“I didn’t have a clue. It was a complete surprise,” Pringle, 78, said. “I appreciate the sentiment behind it, though I’m not completely sure I deserve it. But it was a great honor. I feel highly honored.”

If that wasn’t enough of an honor, the next time the award is given it’ll have his name on it.

“It will be called the George Pringle Lifetime Achievement Award,” said Bill Deese, executive director of the Leesburg Chamber of Commerce. “The Ambassador Committee recommended we give him a lifetime achievement award, and then every year after this year we should give it to someone in the community.”

That also came as a surprise to the man of the hour.

“That is what you call being doubly honored,” Pringle said. “I can hardly believe that. But I guess if you stay around and keep pitching its appreciated in some quarters.”

Deese said Pringle — who is working to create a performing arts center at Lake-Sumter Community College and who paid for the Town Square fountain — was a natural choice for the award.

“George is such a huge supporter of the community and the chamber, not only through his volunteer time but his financial support as well,” Deese said. “He’s helped bring the chamber through some rough times and stuck his neck out for it and done so many other things for the community.”

Pringle said he was especially proud of his role in getting a Civil Air Patrol headquarters building constructed at the Leesburg airport. That happened about 10 years ago, he said, when he was commander of the local CAP group.

“I’m also proud of the local communities we’ve built,” he said. “I guess around here locally those are a couple things I’m proud of.”

Pringle said being honored by the chamber of commerce places him in some fine company.

“We’ve had a lot of fine people in this area. There have been a large number through the years,” he said. “So I guess I joined the club, so to speak.”