The 1964 Awardees

Edwin W. Beitzell
(1905-1984)

BSFS 1928
New York, NY

Edwin W. Beitzell, a businessman who became an author of numerous books on the Chesapeake Bay area, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC on Oct. 17, 1964.

Beitzell grew up in St. Mary's Maryland and arrived at Georgetown in 1924 following studies at Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin University. Following his degree from the School of Foreign Service in 1928, Beitzell joined the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, where he worked for 39 years. At the time of his award, Beitzell was a supervisor of commercial engineering and a former recording secretary of the Georgetown University Alumni Association.

Upon his retirement from C&P in 1967, Beitzell devoted the next two decades of his life in the stories of his beloved Maryland. In addition to a number of articles for regional historical societies, he wrote three books, The Jesuit Missions of St. Mary's County," "Life on the Potomac River" and "Point Lookout: Prison Camp for Confederates." He received an honorary doctorate from St. Mary's College before his death in 1984 at the age of 79.

Rev. Edward B. Bunn, S.J.
(1896-1972)

Honorary Degree, 1968
Washington, DC

Rev. Edward B. Bunn, president of Georgetown University from 1952 to 1964, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC on Oct. 17, 1964.

Rev. Bunn was born in Baltimore in 1896 and graduated from Loyola College in 1917, entering the priesthood. He earned degrees from St. Joseph's-on-Hudson (NY) and the Gregorian University in Rome. Following teaching assignments at Fordham and Canisius, Rev. Bunn was named president of Loyola from 1938-1947 and regent of the dental and nursing schools at Georgetown from 1947-1951. Following a brief tenure at Scranton, he was called back to Georgetown to become president following the extended absence of Hunter Guthrie, S.J. in the fall of 1952.

Bunn's tenure at Georgetown was marked by the creation of the Alumni Annual Fund, a three-fold increase in the operating budget, and the construction of numerous campus buildings familiar by their names today: New South, Walsh, Harbin, and Darnall. At the conclusion of his second term he was named as the University's chancellor, a ceremonial post which he held until his death on June 18, 1972 at the age of 76.

William S. Catherwood III
(1920-2008)

BSS 1942
New York, NY

William ("Bill") Catherwood, the former president of the Georgetown University Alumni Association, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC on Oct. 17, 1964.

A native of Brooklyn, NY, Catherwood received his degree from Georgetown in 1942 before entering military service in World war II, earning two Bronze Stars in combat. After a career in electrical manufacturing, he became a business officer for Marymount Manhattan College.

An active member of the Board of Governors of the Georgetown University Alumni Association, Catherwood was vice-president of the Association from 1956-1958 and its president from 1962-1964,. He later served on the Board of Directors.

In retirement, Catherwood lent his expertise to the business operations at the College of Boca Raton, later known as Lynn University, where he received an honorary degree. He died in 2008 at the age of 87.

Al Philip Kane
(1907-1990)

AB 1928, LLB 1932, LLM 1934
Washington, DC

Al Philip Kane, a Washington attorney and law professor, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC on Oct. 17, 1964.

His 1983 obituary from the Washington Post remembered him as follows: " He was admitted to the bar in 1931 and was a partner in the Washington firm of Kane & Koons from 1935 until retiring for health reasons in 1980. He specialized in real estate, probate, and labor law."

"Mr. Kane was a full-time member of the Georgetown law faculty from 1933 to 1952, then an adjunct professor until 1959. Over the years, he taught courses in real property, torts, contracts, and domestic law. He was a past vice president and committee chairman of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia. He was named its lawyer of the year in 1985."

Kane also served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Georgetown Alumni Association from 1946 to 1949.

Al Philip Kane died in 1990 at the age of 83.

Dr. Thomas Keliher, MD
(1909-1990)

BS 1932, MD 1934, Honorary Degree 1978
Washington, DC

Thomas Keliher, a former vice president of the Georgetown University Medical Center, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC on Oct. 17, 1964.

Keliher's ties with Georgetown began at a young age. Raised on O Street a few blocks from the campus, he attended Holy Trinity School and Gonzaga College High School before completing his undergraduate degree from the College in 1932 and a medical degree which followed. In addition to a private practice, he taught for 40 years at the Medical Center from 1937-1977, and served as the director of its diagnostic clinic. he received an honorary degree in 1978 upon his retirement.

In his 2005 memoir, Dr. Oscar Mann recalls Keliher's strengths as a doctor and as a person. "He had put all his energy into becoming an extraordinary clinical teacher and an excellent diagnostician. he had certainly succeeded. This quiet clinical giant was unassuming, friendly, and always available to others...a prominent retired Washington internist recently reminded me: 'Someone once said of Dr. Keliher that no one could see how he made a living-all of his patients were either doctors, doctors families, or priests and nuns! No charges.'"

Thomas Keliher died in 1990 at the age of 81.

Edward B. Williams
(1920-1988)

LLB 1944
Washington, DC

Edward Bennett Williams, a Washington DC attorney and owner of the Baltimore Orioles, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC on Oct. 17, 1964.

"In life, every effort is marked down at the end as a win or a loss," Williams said, and his legacy was as one of the winningest attorneys Washington has ever known.

Born in Hartford in 1920, Williams attended Holy Cross as an undergraduate and enrolled at Georgetown Law School in 1941 following a military training accident that left him unfit for further service. He received his law degree in 1944 and worked for four years at the firm of Hogan & Hartson before starting his own firm, Williams & Connolly. Over the course of the next four decades, Williams would be the capital's version of a superlawyer, taking on the cases of litigants across the political and moral spectrum.

His clients included a "who's who" of the controversial names of the day, from Joseph McCarthy to Jimmy Hoffa, Bobby Baker to Adam Clayton Powell. He could speak extemporaneously for as much as two hours to a jury without notes, part of a regimen that was legendary among his admirers and critics alike.

"I will defend anyone as long as the client gives me total control of the case, and pays up front," Williams once remarked.

"Mr. Williams was a tall, impressive, well-tailored presence in the courtroom," wrote the New York Times. "His hair was wavy and flowed over the back of his collar, and as he spoke in a calm but resonant voice he moved about the chamber with the grace of a leopard. He never shouted for emphasis, was never flamboyant, never pounded on desks to make a point and never resorted to the theatrical tricks often associated with trial lawyers."

"His total immersion in a client's cause made it possible, he said, for him to abide by his cardinal rule: 'Never ask a witness a question to which you don't already know the answer.'"

"Anyone who is fortunate enough to get close to Ed Williams is well served,' said former senator and secretary of state Edmund S. Muskie. "Ed is not directly or actively involved in politics, but he is a political animal with good political instincts. If he were to speak well of a candidate, or to make himself available for counseling, this becomes known and has a rippling effect among opinion makers, party leaders and fund raisers."

Williams was an active force in professional sports. He bought a share of the Washington Redskins from the estate of George Preston Marshall in 1960 and was a minority owner in the team (along with fellow alumnus and 1963 John Carroll recipient William Shea) until 1985. He purchased the Baltimore Orioles for $11.2 million in 1980, which he held until his death in 1988 at the age of 68.

In his 1962 book, Williams argued that "For the trial lawyer, the unpopular cause is often a post of honor...I have taken on many difficult cases for unpopular clients, not because of my own wishes, but because of the unwritten law that I might not refuse."