One winner in the general category, and three lifetime achievement awardees will be honored at the Paul Bartlett Ré Peace Prize reception, held in the Zimmerman Library on the University of New Mexico’smain campus Wednesday, May 21 from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Willard Reading Room located on the west side of Zimmerman Library. Refreshments will be served. 

 

Ré is recognized internationally for promoting world peace and harmony through his art. On a biennial cycle, the Peace Prize is given to UNM students, faculty, staff members, alumni or retirees who promote peace, harmony and understanding among people of the world. There will be presentations by the awardees and the selection committee.  
 

In announcing the 2014 roster of awardees, chair of the Peace Prize selection committee, Marcus Price, Emeritus Professor and past dean of graduate studies at UNM, said, “We always have excellent nominees and it is a pleasure and privilege to interact with them.”

 

The winner of the 2014 Peace Prize in the general category will be Peter Nardini for his work with Green World Health Net, a malaria prevention project which uses a solar powered fan to cool malaria nets so one can sleep under them; it also addresses climate change and poverty. 

 

Three lifetime achievement awardees will also be named.  The husband-wife musical team, Lynne Jackson and Mike Palter, who reside in Manchester by the Sea, Mass. (near Boston), are perhaps best known for their peace anthem, We Dream a Brighter Day.

 

A Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Rudolfo Anaya, widely known as the Godfather of Chicano literature.  The author of dozens of beloved works from Bless Me, Ultima to The Essays, he has long emphasized a deep respect for the environment and our sacred relationship with the earth.  Albuquerque resident Anaya holds three degrees from UNM.

 

Members of the selection committee included Susan Morrison JD, CFP focusing on sustainability; Lynn Billings, JD, mediator; and Fred Shair, a longtime Caltech Professor. Prize sponsor and originator, Paul Ré, who serves as advisor to the selection committee, noted, “The 2014 awardees demonstrate how UNM affiliates are having a profound, harmonizing influence from locally to globally.  They have accomplished this in diverse disciplines while nurturing both inner and outer peace.”

 

For more information about the Peace Prize and Ré’s four decades of creating serene and elevating art, see his acclaimed volume, The Dance of the Pencil, and also www.paulre.org.  Re's new book, Art, Peace and Transcendence, is expected out in 2015 with UNM Press.