As Blanchard Scholar
For Study at Georgia State
Special to the Daily World
M. Chieoke Moore, a graduate of Morehouse College and a candidate for
the degree of Master of Business Administration at Georgia State University, has
been honored with a $25,000 scholarship from the Blanchard Award for Outstanding
Stewardship and Business Ethics.
Moore was awarded the scholarship at the Monday, Feb. 28 meeting of the Atlanta
Rotary Club.
About 75 students from public and private schools throughout metro Atlanta attended the
scholarship presentation, along with 250 Atlanta area business leaders in Rotary.
Assisting Georgia Lottery chief executive Margaret DeFrancisco in making the award
was B. Franklin Skinner, former head of BellSouth Telecommunications and the winner
of this year’s Blanchard Award.
As the recipient of the award, Skinner was allowed to choose the college or university
from which the scholarship recipient would be drawn. He chose Morehouse College, on
whose board he serves, and the college nominated Mr. Moore.
The Blanchard Award is given annually to a Georgia business leader whose lifelong
career demonstrates sound business ethics. The award promotes business support of
education throughout the state by offering a scholarship to a graduate business student
who has demonstrated exceptionally high ethical standards.
“I’m very excited to receive this scholarship,” said Moore. “But I am also honored to be
associated with an award that is attached to some of the most influential business leaders
in the state. I hope that I can live up to the standard they have set.”
Moore, whose grandfather was a “Morehouse man” in the 1950s, graduated summa cum
laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Morehouse in May 2010 with a degree in accounting.
Outside of the classroom, Moore served as president of the Morehouse Business
Association, the largest organization on campus.
He was nominated by the faculty to represent Morehouse College on the Citi
International Spring Tour, which introduced a select group of students to some of the
leading corporations in Europe. His work experience includes internships with several of
the world’s premier financial institutions, including Standard & Poor, Lehman Brothers and PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP.
In addition to his studies at Georgia State, Moore is a teaching assistant for undergraduate
accounting students. He, his wife, Dereka, and their daughter, Zayani Elise, live in
Atlanta.
“This award demonstrates Georgia’s high regard for the link between ethics, scholarship
and business leadership,” said Ms. DeFrancisco.
The Georgia Lottery Corporation is the lead sponsor of the Blanchard Award. Other
award sponsors are the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and Georgia Trend magazine.
The award is named after its first recipient, former Synovus CEO and Chairman Jimmy
Blanchard.
Nominations for the third annual 2011 Blanchard Award are now being accepted. The
nomination form is available online at https://www.theledliegroup.com or can be obtained
as a hard copy at tom.oder@theledliegroup.com. The deadline to submit nominations is
June 1, 2011.
For more information about the Blanchard Award, contact The Ledlie Group:
Matthew M. Ficken
404.266.8833.
Matt.ficken@theledliegroup.com