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The Silver Medal is unique among advertising awards. It is given to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to advertising and who have been active in furthering industry standards, creative excellence and responsibility in areas of social concern. This award is to honor individuals for lifetime achievements in the advertising industry.
Among the major contributions for which a prospective Silver Medal recipient should be judged are:
1. Contributions to company: His or her record of achievement must be solid and continuous.
2. Creative ability:
3. Contribution to the general advancement of advertising:
4. And the award winner should be recognized as a person of principle and integrity.
This year's winner is known throughout our area as "the sole visual chronicler of Myrtle Beach history." But he’s also spent much of his life photographing other communities throughout Horry County from Conway and Galivant’s Ferry to Little River and Loris.
It all began back in 1951 at age 13, when he and his older brother, Joe, hitchhiked from Greenville, SC to Myrtle Beach. Liking what they saw and experienced, they convinced their parents that Myrtle Beach was where they wanted to grow up and go to school.
He later met and married one of the prettiest beachcombers he had ever seen – and decided to make his stay in Myrtle Beach permanent.
Trying to decide what he wanted to do in life, he happened to meet Dwight Lambe one day at the Myrtle Beach Pavilion. Mr. Lambe owned and operated Skip's, a downtown full-service photographic studio, gift shop and record center. He got his first job there as a photographer’s assistant, where Dwight Lambe taught him the principles of good photography and instilled in him the technique of picture taking that has made our recipient’s photographs famous.
He later opened his own successful photography studio…and the rest is history, as they say.
From his photos of the aftermath of Hurricane Hazel in 1954, and the demolition of Myrtle Beach's storied Ocean Forest Hotel in 1974, to the devastation caused by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, he has continually captured on film the most memorable moments of our area’s history.
And he has never wavered in his support of our community. Whether being on hand for almost every Sun Fun Festival or other community event, or making his historic photographs available to help out a worthy cause, tonight’s honoree needs only be asked.
Among his latest contributions, he organized and went on to lead the "All Aboard Committee" in its efforts to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to save and restore Myrtle Beach’s original train depot. Today, it is again one of the focal points of downtown – and a vivid reminder of what can be accomplished when you love your hometown and believe so much in a worthy cause.
His photographs are the heart of two recently published picture books – "Reflections in Time" and "Memories of Myrtle Beach" – that offer readers a trip down memory lane, displaying images of scenes and structures that have become landmarks for the decades extending from the 1950s into the 21st century.
But if a picture is truly worth a thousand words, our Silver Medal winner has given us countless volumes from which we can share nostalgic and memory-evoking views of Myrtle Beach, Horry County and the ever-expanding Grand Strand.
Coastal Advertising & Marketing Professionals extends its heartiest congratulations to photographer Jack Thompson of Myrtle Beach, our Silver Medal Award winner for 2005.
