1. IOTA 2017 Annual Meeting Awards Presentations
Special Achievement Award
Homer F. DaBoll Award
David E. Laird Award

2. The Importance of Awards
Allows an organization to state clearly what it values in its members
Recognizes the significant contributions made by members
Permits us to honor those we admire and whom we wish to emulate
Provides a permanent record of the significant work done by those we have sought to honor

3. Background DaBoll Award
To recognize significant contributions to occultation science and to the work of IOTA
Name honors Homer F. DaBoll (1920 – 1990)
Organizer of grazing occultation expeditions in Midwest USA beginning in late 1960s
Suggested the name “International Occultation Timing Association”
Founding officer of IOTA 1975 (secretary/treasurer)
First editor of Occultation Newsletter, from 1974 through 1990

4. Previous Awardees Homer F. DaBoll Award
Dave Herald, Australia
Edwin Goffin, Belgium
Steve Preston, USA
Hristo Pavlov, Australia
Scotty Degenhardt, USA
Kazuhisa Miyashita, Japan
Graham L. Blow, New Zealand
Brian Loader, New Zealand
Gerhard Dangl, Austria
2016 Derek Breit, USA

5. Regional Coordinators for Asteroidal Occultation Reports
The 2017 IOTA Homer F. DaBoll Award is presented to
Regional Coordinators for Asteroidal Occultation Reports
John Talbot
Steve Kerr
Eric Frappa
Tsutomu Hayamizu
Brad Timerson

6. The 2017 IOTA Homer F. DaBoll Award is presented to
John Talbot

7. The 2017 IOTA Homer F. DaBoll Award is presented to
Steve Kerr

8. The 2017 IOTA Homer F. DaBoll Award is presented to
Eric Frappa

9. The 2017 IOTA Homer F. DaBoll Award is presented to
Tsutomu Hayamizu

10. Tsutomu Hayamizu The 2017 IOTA Homer F. DaBoll Award is presented to
I've never imagined that the big award would be given to me. Perhaps this will be the heaviest honour for my life.
The reason of this prize is Leadership in Regional Coordination of IOTA  Asteroidal Observations and Continuing Contributions of Occultation Measurements. Then I would like to thank Japanese occultation observers for this award. And, I say congratulations to Brad, Eric, John and Steve, who win the prize together.
The observation of occultations stands out as a field where amateurs contribute to astronomy. Especially Japan is a small country, but it is a good region for the observation of occultations, because, Japan has long area from north to south and have many excellent observers. Japan is also located at an important position because the USA, Europe and Japan can cooperate with each other to cover the whole sky of the northern hemisphere. Also in the future, Japan should continue to play an important part. I would like to make an effort to play that part, too.
I wish I could receive this award with Takashi Setoguchi, who died young two years ago, because he provided predictions of many important occultation events for us and he taught me how to analyze occultation observations. I would like to respect him for his achievement and share the thanks of winning the prize.

11. The 2017 IOTA Homer F. DaBoll Award is presented to
Brad Timerson

12. Background, Laird Award
To recognize those who, more than 15 years ago, made significant contributions to occultation science and to the work of IOTA
Name honors David E. Laird (1931 – 1968)
Physics teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio
Organizer of grazing occultation expeditions in Midwest USA beginning in early 1960s
Published articles “Have Telescope: Will Travel” Oct 1966
Confirmed existence of a giant impact basin on the Lunar far side
Suffered from Leukemia and died in 1968 at age 37
Provisionally named the David E. Laird Award, it will be similar to the Homer DaBoll award, but is meant to honor those individuals whose major contribution to IOTA or to occultation science is more than 15 years old. It is named for David E. Laird, a physics teacher at the Cincinnati Country Day School who made important contributions to occultation science in the early days of lunar grazing occultation expeditions in the mid 1960's. The observations made by an expedition to northwestern Ohio, that he organized for a grazing occultation in October 1964, showed that the area beyond the lunar south pole was unusually low, the so-called southern "Cassini region" (the Watts charts incorrectly indicated that this area probably had ordinary elevations), a confirmation of the existence of a giant impact basin on the lunar far side that Gerald Kuiper postulated, believing that the Leibnitz mountains were the rim of that basin. The basin was finally mapped with the laser altimeter on the Clementine spacecraft in 1994 and named the "South Pole Aitken Basin", the largest impact basin on the Moon and also the oldest. Unfortunately, David Laird suffered from leukemia and died when he was only 37 years old, in 1968 or 1969 according to Dunham. He already has an award named after him, the computer science award given by the Cincinnati Country Day School

13. Previous Awardees David E. Laird Award
Harold R. Povenmire, USA
Gordon E. Taylor, UK
Robert “Bob” Sandy, USA
Jean Meeus, Belgium

14. The 2017 IOTA David E. Laird Award Is Presented To:
Walt Morgan