Edwin J. Feulner, founder and longtime president of The Heritage Foundation, was selected by the Board of Trustees as the 2019 recipient of the Clare Boothe Luce Lifetime Achievement Award. The award, announced at the first Heritage Honors Gala Oct. 22 before 1,500 attendees, is the internationally-respected think tank’s highest honor.

The Clare Boothe Luce Lifetime Achievement Award was established in 1991 and presented to Ambassador Shelby Cullom Davis and Dr. Kathryn Davis. Other Luce Award recipients include President Ronald Reagan, Lady Margaret Thatcher, Attorney General Edwin Meese III, William F. Buckley Jr., Dr. Milton and Rose Friedman, Rush Limbaugh, and Vice President Dick Cheney.

“Ed Feulner’s outstanding vision and leadership are what earned The Heritage Foundation the title of the most impactful think tank in the world,” said Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James. “Through his stewardship, the principles of this country’s founding have been preserved and have informed many of the successful federal policies of the last four decades. The Clare Boothe Luce Award is a sincere token of the respect, admiration, and love the whole Heritage family has for Ed for all he has done for Heritage and for this country.”
 

Barb Van Andel-Gaby, Chair of the Heritage Board of Trustees notes that the Luce Award is a “rare honor that has been bestowed upon only a small number of conservatives” and that “there is no one more deserving of this award than Ed Feulner,” a “great American patriot.”

“Ed Feulner is a giant of the conservative movement, a transformational figure in American history, and a modern-day Founding Father,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “His leadership of The Heritage Foundation transformed the think tank from a small policy shop into America’s powerhouse of conservative ideas. Ed Feulner has changed how conservatives think, how our leaders think, and how Americans think.”

President Ronald Reagan said of Ed Feulner: “By building an organization dedicated to ideas and their consequences, he has helped to shape the policy of our government. His has been a voice of reason and values in service to his country and the cause of freedom around the world.”

The Heritage Foundation, founded in 1973, is the nation’s largest, most broadly-supported conservative research and educational institution. More than 500,000 members support our vision to build an America where freedom, prosperity, opportunity and civil society flourish.