{"id":384,"date":"2019-06-23T15:16:02","date_gmt":"2019-06-23T15:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=384"},"modified":"2019-06-23T15:16:13","modified_gmt":"2019-06-23T15:16:13","slug":"lakeland-man-wins-distinguished-citizen-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/06\/23\/lakeland-man-wins-distinguished-citizen-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland man wins Distinguished Citizen Award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chairman and chief executive officer of Harrell\u2019s LLC, a blended fertilizer and liquid plant nutrition producer based in Lakeland, Jack Harrell Jr. was presented with the prestigious honor from the Thunderbird District of the Greater Tampa Bay Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America during the gala at Lone Palm Country Club.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The consensus at the annual Distinguished Citizen Award Dinner presented by the Thunderbird District of the Greater Tampa Bay Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America was that Jack R. Harrell Jr. was the man of the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harrell, chairman and chief executive officer of Harrell\u2019s LLC, a blended fertilizer and liquid plant nutrition producer based in Lakeland, was presented with the prestigious honor during the gala at Lone Palm Country Club on Thursday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can\u2019t thank you enough, this is unbelievable,\u201d Harrell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Distinguished Citizen Award is presented by the council annually in honor of individuals who represent the values of scouting through their service to the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 12 points of the Scout Law are \u201ctrustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harrell is the third family member in three-quarters of a century to lead Harrell\u2019s LLC, which was established in 1941.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to fertilizer and liquid plant nutrients, the company specializes in chemicals and grass seed for the golf course, sports turf, lawn care, specialty agriculture and horticulture industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A native of Lakeland, Harrell runs the company founded by his grandparents, Ormond and Lucille Harrell, who entered the industry when they purchased a small feed store in Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1978, he joined the business after graduating from Georgia Southern College with a bachelor\u2019s degree in business management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with his father, Harrell helped open their first manufacturing plant in 1985 in Lakeland, producing turf fertilizers. Five years later, he was appointed chief executive officer of the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, Harrell has been an active member of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Lakeland, served on the advisory board for Parker Street Ministries, the Salvation Army and Youth for Christ. He also is a member of the board of directors and past chairman of the board for Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He and his wife, Tina, have been married 36 years, and they have two sons, Jack R. Harrell III and William H. Harrell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trinity\u2019s Pastor Tim Rice brought tribute to Harrell, saying, \u201cI love how you lead with generosity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou bless,\u201d he said, adding that Harrell never turned anybody away who needed help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of Harrell\u2019s charitable works and philanthropy, Rice said, \u201cWe are going to need an eternity to see how far the ripples run.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harrell\u2019s son Jack spoke, describing his dad as a leader and a man of character, whose mantra imparted to the family was that of humility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tribute video was presented, comprised of remarks from various community leaders and friends of Harrell\u2019s, including retired vice chairman of Publix Super Markets, Barney Barnett, who said, \u201cEven though he wasn\u2019t a Boy Scout, he was a good guy. There\u2019s nobody in Lakeland that deserves this award more than you do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clayton Hollis, former vice president of Publix, described him as \u201cloyal and friendly,\u201d while Lakeland Regional\u2019s Elaine Thompson said Harrell was \u201cincredibly hard working.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd awarded Harrell with the \u201cHonorary Deputy\u201d plaque, and Lakeland Mayor Bill Mutz designated June 20, 2019 as \u201cJack R. Harrell Jr. Day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of his wife, Harrell told the group that \u201cAnything I have accomplished, I couldn’t have done it without her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fund-raiser dinner helped the Thunderbird District supersede its original $66,000 goal to ensure each child who wants to participate in the Boy Scouts can do so free of cost. Donations from the evening brought the total to $73,000 for the Scouts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chairman and chief executive officer of Harrell\u2019s LLC, a blended fertilizer and liquid plant nutrition producer based in Lakeland, Jack Harrell Jr. was presented with the prestigious honor from the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}