Awards

School of Optometry Foley House Basement Key Award - 1986

About School of Optometry

History of the Foley House Basement Key Award (Taken from the IU School of Optometry website)

The annual IU School of Optometry alumni breakfast held at 7:44 a.m. during the American Optometric Association meeting is unquestionably the most unusual function sponsored by any group during the convention. Playfully dubbed the "Foley House Basement Breakfast and Awards Banquet" by its co-founders, Drs. Mike Obremsky and Don Pitts, it is always held in some unlikely part of the convention center--the boiler room, loading docks, in the kitchen, or wherever--to revive memories of the rustic facilities at 744 East Third Street (Bloomington, Indiana) that served as the IU Optometry clinic for ten years before the present Optometry building was constructed.

Beginning with the first breakfast (in the Convention Center basement of the Las Vegas Hilton in 1976), a "Foley House Basement Door Key Award" was presented each year to an individual distinguished for his or her role in memorializing Foley House. After so honoring ten persons from 1976-1985, the selection committee was unable to single out another individual, so the 1986 award went to "et al." in recognition of all the others who did something commendable or commemorative in relation to Foley House. That could have ended the Foley House Awards, but those at the 1986 breakfast voted to continue the awards, basing them on tradition-building for the school in general, rather than just the Foley House.

So, the 1986 award was bestowed Under the hotel sign next to the freeway, and recognized "et al." for all those other individuals whose contributions to the legend of Foley House have gone unrecognized and unrewarded, and will continue that way.