Larr Award
The Timothea Larr Award
The purpose of this award is to recognize a person whose vision and guidance
have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of sailor education
in the United States. The award may be made to any individual who, in the opinion of the US Sailing Training Committee Selection Team, fully meets this criterion.
The trophy is Training's highest honor, and is awarded each fall at the Annual General Meeting. Any US Sailing member may nominate a person for the Timothea Larr Award.
Nominees for the award should be members of US Sailing and also embody the
highest principles of honor, integrity and a selfless dedication to the sport.
Past recipients of the Larr Award:
2002 - Susie Trotman
2003 - Steve and Doris Colgate
2004 - John Malatak
2005 - Jo Mogle
2006 - Nancy Richardson
2007 - Ralf Steitz
2008 - Ruth Creighton
2009 - Dick Allsopp
2010 - Jim Muldoon
2012- Joni Palmer
About the 2012 winner
Joni Palmer has been sailing, training sailors and promoting the sport her entire life. Palmer graduated from Miami University of Ohio where she was honored as one of the first female Collegiate All American skippers. She went on to coach the sailing team at the University of California at Irvine while teaching sailing at Newport Harbor Yacht Club. She was subsequently recruited by San Diego Yacht Club to become one of the first year-round sailing program directors in the country.
After ten years in Southern California, she moved to Annapolis, Md. where she had a long term successful consulting business promoting sailing and sail training. During this time, she conducted over 80 regional sailing program management seminars around the country and contracted with over 25 individual sailing programs to start or fine-tune their operations. She conducted more than 60 US Sailing Instructor Training courses and ran dozens of on-the-water clinics for beginning youth sailors to potential Olympians. Joni developed, managed and produced 15 US Sailing National Sail Training Symposiums. She was also the Executive Director of the US Optimist Dinghy Association and is responsible for its explosion in the US. She also worked with a program that specialized in teaching sailing to youth with learning differences and another program that worked with at risk youth.
Palmer was recruited by the US Naval Academy to work for them in all aspects of organizing and conducting their sailing program, including competitive racing, administration, and basic sail training. Her current focus is developing, organizing and executing the summer basic sail training program for the 1,200 incoming freshman. This includes training and managing a staff of 120 Midshipmen.
Palmer has been extremely active in US Sailing. She was instrumental in the development stages of the small boat instructor training program, brought US Sailing’s National Sailing Program Symposium to the professional level it is today, and jump started the successful US Sailing One Design Sailing Symposium. Palmer has been an active member of every US Sailing committee that deals with training, youth sailing, or community sailing. She was a member of the US Sailing delegation to ISAF and was honored to serve as a US Sailing Vice President for three years.
She inspired me to approach the yacht club that employed me during the summer and create a full-time junior director position,” said Holland “Cappy” Capper, Executive Director of the Wayzata Community Sailing Center. “It was an opportunity that changed my life as I am still teaching and coaching full-time today.”
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