ALUMNI AWARDS

The 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award was presented to Charles J. Durante ’69 during Homecoming Weekend. The Alumni Awards recognize alumni who exemplify the qualities of a Tower Hill graduate, have distinguished themselves among their peers and have been involved with the school through volunteer work, contributions or other ways.

Distinguished Alumni Award

As a lawyer, journalist and civic leader, Chuck Durante has advanced Tower Hill’s ideals for a half-century. A partner in the Wilmington law firm of Connolly Gallagher LLP, Chuck is the president of the Delaware State Bar Association. He is also chair of the Board of Editors of Delaware Lawyer, a quarterly magazine published by the Delaware Bar Foundation, a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and a Fellow of the American Bar Endowment. He is past chairman of the Estates and Trusts Section of the Delaware State Bar Association and past president of the Wilmington Tax Group. His work has included litigation of significant public impact.

Chuck has been a fixture in Delaware sports since he was a Tower Hill student, when he wrote about Hiller sports for The News Journal, for whom he continues to cover high school track and cross country. He is president of the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame and president of the Delaware Sportswriters and Broadcasters Association. A sportswriter and columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer while he was in law school, he continues to write on topics touching on the law, American history and public affairs. He is also a member of the Delaware Track and Field Hall of Fame.

Active in many civic groups, he is a trustee of the Delaware Historical Society. As vice chair of Common Cause of Delaware, Chuck was the prime author of Delaware’s campaign finance reform law of 1990.

At Tower Hill, Chuck was editor of the Dial, president of the Student Council and a varsity distance runner. An honors graduate of Haverford College, which awarded him the Alumni Award for sustained service to the College in 1998, Chuck is a longtime member of Tower Hill’s Alumni Council. During their 50th reunion year, he led his classmates to establish the Class of 1969 Endowed Scholarship, which annually “recognizes a student who demonstrates “talent and moxie’,” a phrase of Ed Hughes. Chuck’s brother, Larry ’71, and daughters Julia ’07 and Maddy ’12, also graduated from Tower Hill.