Now in its 41st year, the Leadership Lakeland is an annual program to cultivate and enhance local leadership.
Joe G. Tedder, a graduate of Leadership Lakeland Class XIII, was humbled if not entirely surprised to receive the organization’s highest honor, the Jere Annis Leadership Award.
While the winner is usually kept secret, in his acceptance speech, Tedder said a locator app gave him a clue that he might be the one to receive the honor when he went to check where his parents were having dinner and realized that they, too, were at the event.
Tedder also thanked his “amazing, beautiful and more-successful-than-me” wife, Tracy Tedder, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs at Florida Southern College.
“I’ve been to many of these nights and so admired the people who have received this award,” he said. “I am deeply humbled to be included among them.”
Tedder was recently elected to his eighth term as Polk County Tax Collector, a position he has held since 1997.
Tedder is the 32nd alum to receive the award since it was established in 1989 to honor the late Dr. Jere Annis, founder of Watson Clinic and one of the original organizers of the Leadership Lakeland Program.