TAMPA — The Hillsborough County Commission voted unanimously Wednesday morning to remove the name of Ralph Hughes from its Moral Courage Award, which honors those with integrity and ethics who stand up to the government for the community good.
Hughes was a Republican advocate of smaller government who financially backed political candidates who shared his views and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on conservative political causes and campaigns.
He was 77 when he died in June 2008 and the subject of controversy when Commissioner Jim Norman suggested his name for the county's most prestigious citizen award, which was established without a name in 1991.
Its 1996 recipient even returned her award.
In May, the Internal Revenue Service filed a claim saying Hughes and his business owed $69.3 million in unpaid taxes and interest when he died. His family disputes that claim.
But Tuesday, his family requested that his name be taken off the award:
"My father would have been honored yet humbled to have his name associated with the Moral Courage Award," said Hughes' son Shea Hughes, in an e-mail Tuesday to Commissioner Jim Norman. "At the same time, he would not have wanted that association if it caused any dissension, controversy or embarrassment to his family.
"In our view, instead of the honor and respect intended, naming the award after him has resulted in people who neither knew my father well nor had any idea of what he did for his community disparaging his name and making statements that are untrue and hurtful."
Wednesday, Commissioner Rose Ferlita made a motion to take Hughes' name off the award, not because of the tax claims, but because she said the Moral Courage Award was never intended to be named after a specific person.
"Moral courage comes in many fashions, many degrees, many arenas," Ferlita said. She said that naming it after someone defines it narrowly and diminishes its value.
Norman, who still insists that Hughes embodied the spirit of the award, said he would honor the family's wishes when he voted to remove Hughes' name.
Alexandra Zayas can be reached at azayas@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3354.
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