Recipient of the Tartan Day Award for 2004 was Ellice McDonald, Jr., CBE, of Montchanin, Delaware. 

The award was presented at a small ceremony luncheon on Friday, April 9th, at the Greenville Country Club by Robert W. Murdoch of Pittsburgh, national chairman of Tartan Day.

In making the announcement, Mr. Murdoch said:  “I was extremely pleased to hear that the selection committee for the second annual Tartan Day Award has determined the recipient will be Ellice McDonald, Jr., CBE.  Tartan Day as we celebrate it is now eight years old, but Ellice McDonald, through his creation and support of the Clan Donald Centre on Skye, has been upholding Scottish traditions for years.  In 1985, he was appointed a Commander with the Seal of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his contributions to Scottish-American relations.  His tireless activities in that regard have benefitted Scots and Scottish-Americans worldwide.”

“We have celebrated Tartan Day in the United States since 1997.” 

“The selection of Duncan A. Bruce and Ellice McDonald, Jr., as the first two awardees of our annual Tartan Day Award, is indicative of the reasons that The Scottish Coalition established this great day. There are a wealth of individuals who now, in the past and in the future, can be pointed to as contributors to the recognition of Scottish-American values which are important throughout the world.”

The Selection Committee for the 2004 Tartan Day Award was composed of leaders in the Scottish-American community:  Thomas M. Brownlee of Florida, Gloria Hamilton of Colorado, Barbara Humphrey of Minnesota, Anne Kennedy of Washington, DC, Anne M. Lamb of Ohio, Phebe Miller Olcay of Scotland, and Marjorie Warren of North Carolina.

Ellice McDonald is well known in the Scottish-American community.  He was chiefly responsible for the establishment of the Clan Donald World Centre on the Isle of Skye and is a trustee of the Clan Donald Lands Trust on Skye.  He was High Commissioner of Clan Donald USA from 1976 to 1983.  He is founder and trustee of several major foundations, among them the Glencoe Foundation, the Clan Donald Foundation, the Invergarry Foundation (now the Ellice and Rosa McDonald Foundation), and the Gurkha Welfare Trust Foundation USA.

Mr. McDonald has been the recipient of numerous honors, perhaps the most prestigious being that or receiving in 1985 the title of Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) conferred by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth for his contributions to Scottish-American relations.

Ellice McDonald is the son of a Canadian physician, the late Dr. Ellice McDonald, and is grandson of Archibald McDonald, who was born in Glencoe, Scotland, and the last of the chief factors of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Mr. McDonald resides at his home, Invergarry, in Montchanin, Delaware, with his wife, Rosa Packard Laird.

Tartan Day Award designed by Denis Mann

The award, presented to Ellice McDonald, a glass sculpture, was designed by Denis Mann, a Scottish glass artist who is probably best known for having designed and engraved the Mastermind trophies for BBC-TV, as well as a birthday gift commissioned for the late Queen Mother.

Denis Mann is described as a Scottish wheel engraver and kiln worker.  He was commissioned to design the Tartan Day Award by The Scottish Coalition, a consortium of nine Scottish-American organizations serving the Scottish-American community in the United States at the national level.  The Scottish Coalition is well known as the organization that created Tartan Day, and its establishment as an observance by U.S. Senate Resolution 155.

Denis Mann’s most recent exhibition was his one-man show, Touch, at Broadfield House Glass Museum in September 2003.  Earlier that year he also exhibited with the Guild of Glass Engravers in London and in Dundee with the Scottish Glass Society.  Previous exhibitions have taken place in The Netherlands, the United States and the Czech Republic.

The Tartan Day Award was designed and engraved at North Lands Creative Glass, an institution situated in Lybster, a small fishing village on the northeast coast of Scotland.  North Lands was established in the nineties out of a need to create a center of excellence to stimulate the growing interest in the possibility of glass as an art form.  Since then it has become an internationally recognized center of excellence.