Out of the best and most productive years of each man’s life, he should carve a segment in which he puts his private career aside to serve his community and his country, and thereby serve his children, his neighbors, his fellow men, and the cause for freedom.
—David Lilienthal
My father served as a director of the Tompkins County Hospital Corporation, a trustee of the Ithaca Festival of the Arts, a president of the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, president of the Tompkins County United Fund, associate chairman of the Laymen’s National Bible Committee in New York City, president of the Board of Trustees of the First Presbyterian Church of Ithaca, a member of the New York State Council on Crime and Delinquency, and a member of the Governor’s Committee on Hospital Costs by appointment of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and a trustee of the Hospital Review and Planning Council of Central New York from 1966 to 1969.
He was chairman of the New York State Newspaper Foundation, in Albany, New York, from 1977 to 1982, and a director of the New York State Publishers Association beginning in 1975, becoming vice president in 1980 and president in 1981. While there, he founded and became a trustee of the New York State Publishers Foundation.
He also served on the Committee on Regulatory Review of the National Association of Broadcasters from 1984 to 1987, was a member of the Board of Trustees of The Museum of Broadcasting in New York City, and a trustee of the Chowan Graphic Arts Foundation. In 1984, he was also named to the Corporate Advisory Board of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. in Washington, DC.
He was a member of the Rotary Club, the Public Relations Society of America, the American Association of Agricultural College Editors, the Agricultural Relations Council, Phi Kappa Phi (Blue Key Honor Society), the National Press Club of Washington, the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters, the Southern Newspapers Publishers Association, American Newspaper Publishers Association, Inland Daily Press Association, Press Associations of Florida, Oregon, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois, Virginia, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Hoosier State, the Sales Executives Club of New York, and the Broadcasters Associations in New York, Minnesota, Alabama, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington State.
He became director of the Sales Executive Club of Greater New York in 1979, becoming its vice president in 1981, its secretary in 1982 and its treasurer from 1985 to 1987. But back in the ’60s he attended as an ordinary member, and an incident disclosed in the North Carolina State University Alumni News in 1971 showed his devotion to his native state and to his career.
Rudolph (Rudy) Pate, a close friend of my father at NC State, reported, “It was just before Christmas of 1962. The Sales Executive Club of New York was conducting its Christmas party at the Roosevelt Hotel. The program chairman had retained the services of a number of highly attractive dancing girls who were performing some intriguing steps on the stage.
“Roy Park had a platform-side table where he and a member of the staff of the Governor of North Carolina were discussing economy, the politics, and education and the life of North Carolina. The discussion was earnest, and it continued with scant interruption throughout the luncheon and the door-prizes and the dancing.
“After the party, a club member asked Roy what he thought of the beautiful dancing girls. ‘Oh,’ answered Roy with apology, ‘I’m afraid I didn’t see much of them. We were talking North Carolina business.’” 62 On October 27, 1989, North Carolina Governor James G. Martin conferred on Park its highest civilian honor, the North Carolina Award, created in 1961 by the General Assembly and given only to men and women who made significant contributions in science, literature, fine arts and public service. “Park was recognized as a pioneer in food packaging and communications as well as one of the state’s leading philanthropists,” Pate said. He was recognized for making significant contributions to the welfare and quality of life of his native state and the nation.
In 1977 he was named an honorary member of Cornell’s Beta Chapter of the marketing fraternity, Pi Sigma Epsilon; in 1987 an honorary member of the Delta Upsilon Chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi, a business fraternity at NC State; and in 1990, an honorary member of Alpha Epsilon Rho, the National Broadcasting Society at Ithaca College.
On the lighter side, Park held memberships in the Commonwealth Club of Virginia, Lucullus Circle, the Marco Polo Club, the Classic Car Club of America, the Packard Club, the Shenandoah Club, the New York Athletic Club, Cornell Club of New York, Raleigh Capital City Club, the Sphinx Club of Raleigh, Ithaca Country Club, Antique Automobile Club of America, the Union League Club of New York City, the Auburn-Duesenberg Club, and, yes, the Ithaca Yacht Club, which took him despite him ruining their regatta when he first got his boat in the ’40s.
In addition to his work with the Presbyterian Church in Ithaca, he also received the Ethel Nestell Forner Writer and Community Award from St. Andrews (Presbyterian) College in Laurinburg, North Carolina, in 1991. As one of ten winners of the 1971 Abe Lincoln Awards, presented annually by the Southern Baptist’s Radio and Television Commission, he was specifically cited for his outstanding utilization of his radio stations to advance the quality of life in the communities they serve, as well as his broad participation in the religious programming of interest to the audience served.
Among the other honors he received was a special citation for Distinguished Service to Agriculture in 1947 from the American Institute of Cooperatives; a Distinguished Service Award from the Tompkins County United Fund, 1961; a Life Membership Award from the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, 1983; a Giants of Achievement Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement in 1984. In 1990, he was awarded the Broadcast Pioneers prestigious Golden Mike Award for his flagship radio stations, WPAT FM/AM, serving the greater New York City area. In 1982, he was also inducted into the North Carolina Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Again, on the lighter side, he was appointed a County Squire by Governor W. Kerr Scott in1953; an Honorary Citizen of New Orleans by its mayor, de Lesseps Morrison in 1958; an Admiral in the Great Navy of the State of Nebraska by Governor Frank B. Morrison and an Honorary Citizen of the State of Tennessee by Governor Buford Ellington in 1961. In 1963, he was commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel by Governor Bert Combs, and another governor of North Carolina, Terry Sanford, appointed him to the Society of the Prodigal Son the following year.