Spencer Hays, La Médaille d’Or de La Renaissance Française

Spencer Hays is the majority stockholder and Executive Chairman of the Southwestern Company, a company which for almost 160 years has recruited and trained college students for door to door sales of educational materials. While remaining true to its core mission, the company’s umbrella now includes 14 companies specializing in such areas as fundraising, financial planning, consulting and recruitment.

In addition, the graduate of Texas Christian University is the founder and majority stockholder of the Tom James Company and Senior Executive Chairman of Individualized Apparel Group, which has eight factories, a linen mill, a woolen mill and a worsted mill along with apparel companies such as Oxxford Clothes and Gitman & Company.

He and his wife Marlene are avid collectors, who own one of the most extensive collections of the works of the Nabis (Vuillard and Bonnard) as well as other late 19th and early 20th century works by French and European artists and an extensive collection of French antiques. In furthering American and French cultural ties he and his wife Marlene have generously shared many of their works of art with the French community, including a collection of some of their works of art at the Musée d’Orsay in 2013. They live in Nashville, Tennessee and have apartments in New York and Paris.

Spencer is a founder of American Friends of Musée d’Orsay, as well as a member of the Executive Committee, the Steering Committee and chairman of the Gifts of Art Committee.

For his support of French culture, Hays received the Médaille des Arts et Lettres from the Academie des Beaux Arts de I’Institut de France from the French government and was named an Officier de l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur by the French government.

Rebecca Brodarick, La Médaille d’Or de Solidarité et Valeur

Becca Brodarick and her husband hosted their first French exchange student in 1989 in an effort to expose their four young children to international cultures.

Over the next decade, many other students from France and the Côte-d’Ivoire would spend summers at the Brodarick home. Becca became the Kentucky State Coordinator for Nacel Cultural Exchanges, placing sixty to ninety French and Spanish students and their teacher-chaperones with Kentucky families each summer.

Mentoring these students through the challenges of adapting to life in America had the unintended, but positive and long-lasting, effect of exposing Becca to French language and culture.

Inspired by a growing love of French culture, she earned a Master of Arts in Teaching French from the University of Louisville where she was a member of Pi Delta Phi, the National French Honor Society.

Becca taught all four levels of high school French in Louisville, Kentucky. With a strong belief in the value of student exchanges, Becca traveled to France with her own students, as well as groups of Nacel students.

She served on the Board of Directors of l’Alliance Française de Louisville (AFL) from 1998-2011 and was President of AFL from 2000-2003, and Executive Director from 2003-2006. AFL presented Becca with the Médaille d’Or (Member of the Year) in 2002 and again in 2012.

From 2006-2012 Becca served as a board member of the Federation of Alliances Françaises, U.S.A. where she held positions as Corporate Secretary and Co-Vice-President.

She has been a strong advocate for the growth of French programs and organizations in her local community and beyond for almost 30 years. What started as hosting a French exchange student grew into a lifetime commitment to championing the culture and ideals of the French community.

Daniel Brondel, La Médaille d’Or du Rayonnement Cultural

Daniel Brondel is the product of both French upbringing and American college and graduate education. He graduated from high school in the United States and attended college in Atlanta at Georgia State University. His upbringing and early music training in France prepared him for some of the most enriching practical training, particularly as French diction coach for the Grammy Award-winning Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus.

The competition prizes and awards he won during those years gave him a competitive edge toward acceptance at the world-famous Eastman School of Music, in Rochester, NY, for his graduate studies. Academic and performance scholarships were instrumental in his earning a Master’s Degree at Eastman and pursuing doctoral studies in his field.

Through his studies, performances and professional experiences, he has aspired to become a well-rounded musician. His musical and technical skills have been recognized in national organ competitions and critically acclaimed opera performances, and they have prepared him for the requirements of high-profile church positions, both in Rochester and in New York City.

His position as Associate Director of Music at New York’s Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, which he has held since 2008, entails among others the management of the organ recitals series, which features concert organists from all over the world. He actively encourages and invites French colleagues to play concerts at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral each season, and he has had the privilege to be invited to perform organ concerts in notable churches and cathedrals in France. In his concerts he always plays a balance of French and American music. In his duties as organist at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, he often performs French organ music spanning from the baroque to the romantic to contemporary, because it is rarely heard over here.

He had the great honor of directing his youth choir (the Cathedral of Saint Patrick Young Singers) and playing the organ during the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to New York in April 2008, and once again this past September for Pope Francis’ visit to New York.

His personal and professional mission is to make this a better world by bridging the cultures of France and America and by improving the lives of others through his music making.