Rollins Wins Horatio Alger Award

John W. Rollins, president of Rollins Leasing Corp., has been named a 1963 Horatio Alger award winner by the American Schools and Colleges Assn.

The award, established in 1947, is given annually to prove to young people that individual opportunity still exists in the United States. The ASCA said it selects individ­uals "who have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and made substantial contributions to soci­ety."

Rollins, a former lieutenant governor of Delaware, is also co-founder and chairman of the exec­utive committee of Rollins Broad­casting Co, which consists of three television and seven radio stations, an outdoor advertising division and Florida real estate.

Born on a farm in Georgia, Rol­lins started working at the age of 5. At 12, when his father became an invalid, he and his brother helped support the family. Upon leaving the farm at the age of 18, he worked, as a door-to-door salesman, ditch-digger, boiler-maker, road laborer, machinist, ordnance inspector, industrial en­gineer and plant manager.

Rollins Leasing Corp. was formed in 1951. The idea on which the company was founded, according to Rollins, stemmed from an unfortunate experience which he had when as a young man he ap­plied for a job as a salesman. His prospective employer asked him whether he had a car. When he answered "no," he was turned down.

"My idea leading up to the leasing company was that a car should never be a condition of em­ployment," Rollins said.

Rollins was elected lieutenant governor of Delaware in 1952 and in I960 he ran for governor, losing by 3,375 votes.