More than 250 guests celebrated Veterans Day at The Joule for the Legacy Award Dinner presented by the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas. Lyda Hill was this year’s recipient of the organization’s highest honor, because of her vision and dedication to brain research that enables the center to explore the vast potential of the human mind.

Chairperson Lynn McBee got the evening started, sharing Hill’s path to recognition and commending her for giving so much to those who have served and for living her life of service with such gusto. McBee said that it was her hope that Hill be celebrated with such gusto on this special evening.

Four of the Center for BrainHealth’s veterans then presented the award to Hill, who accepted it to a standing ovation by guests, including Toni and Boone Pickens, Charles and Pat McEvoy, Gayle and Paul Stoffel, and Molly and Stephen Holley.

Hill explained that her nephew, Michael Wisenbaker, deserved a lot of the credit. An Air Force F-16 pilot and Iraq war veteran, he urged her to find a solution to an underfunded challenge: the often overwhelming and unseen injuries of war that make the transition from military to civilian life difficult for veterans and military service members.

She accepted his mission and gave $2 million to the Center for BrainHealth’s Brain Performance Institute to activate the Warrior Training Team, mobile units of clinicians and veterans who deliver effective, evidence-based programs that build brain resilience, achieve brain regeneration and reverse losses in cognitive function.

“Thanks to Lyda’s gift, our brothers and sisters in arms are getting the opportunity to focus on training their brains with the same intensity that they do their bodies,” said retired US Navy SEAL Lt. Morgan Luttrell.

The Center for BrainHealth at UTD is a scientific research institute committed to understanding, protecting and healing the brain. The Warrior Training Team has reached more than 500. Projections for next year are in the thousands.