Richard E. Byrd the rank of captain. After a further summer of exploration, the expedition returned to North America on June 18, 1930. A 19-year-old American Boy Scout, Paul Allman Siple, was chosen to accompany the expedition. Unlike the 1926 flight, this expedition was honored with the gold medal of the American Geographical Society. This was also seen in the film "With Byrd at the South Pole" (1930) which covered his trip there. Byrd, by then an internationally recognized, pioneering American polar explorer and aviator, served for a time as Honorary National President (1931–1935) of Pi Gamma Mu, the international honor society in
Richard E. Byrd Richard E. Byrd School was dedicated in 1931. On March 31, 1934, during a regularly scheduled broadcast, Admiral Byrd was awarded the CBS Medal for Distinguished Contribution to Radio. Byrd's short wave relay broadcasts, from his second Antarctic expedition, established a new chapter of communication history. Byrd was the sixth individual to receive this award. The Institute of Polar Studies at The Ohio State University officially changed its name to the Byrd Polar Research Center (BPRC) on January 21, 1987, after it acquired Admiral Richard E. Byrd's expeditionary records, personal papers and other memorabilia in 1985 from the estate of