Kentucky’s brush with Nobelity
Question: This question was not asked by a reader but I’m know you’re thinking about it. What is Kentucky’s experience
with Nobel Peace Prize winners? I’m glad you asked!
Answer: The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to 95 individuals and 20 organizations since 1901.
In light of Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize win, we decided to list Kentucky brushes with the Nobel Peace Prize. We actually have one winner, one almost winner, the daughter of a winner and the wife of a governor who mistakenly thought she had been nominated:
1) Dr. James E. Muller, who helped found International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, an association of 135,000 members, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. He came to work at UK Chandler Medical Center in 1996.
2) In 1989, former Kentucky first lady Martha Wilkinson (wife of then governor Wallace Wilkinson) had been “enamored and thrilled” by what she thought was a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, until she got disappointing news. The Alabama man who wrote a letter to the Nobel Committee on her behalf was not qualified to nominate her. In addition, he recently had been trying to drum up business in Kentucky for his Birmingham-based insurance company. Bob Nelson, who was also a free-lance writer, said his business concerns had nothing to do with what he called his “kindhearted gesture for Mrs. Wilkinson.” She thought that she had been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to wipe out illiteracy in the state with “Martha’s Army.”
3) Harriett Van Meter, founder of the International Book Project, was a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
4) The 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Desmond Tutu, spoke at commencement ceremonies at the University of Kentucky in 1985. His daughter, Naomi Tutu-Seavers, was a graduate of UK and later became an international economic consultant in Hartford, Conn.
I have a call out to the Nobel Committee to see if I’ve missed any other Kentucky Peace Prize winners. So watch this space for updates. For a complete list : Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. I discovered from the official Nobel web page that the names of laureates are listed but not their hometown. The Nobel office was not able to give me a list of Nobel Peace prize winners from Kentucky.
Linda Niemi
Filed under: Kentucky history, Lexington History, Questions You Did Not Ask
My mother was a public school librarian. I earned a bachelor’s degree in music and a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Kentucky. The Herald-Leader hired me as a news assistant 25 years ago; soon after, I moved to the news research department, where I’ve been ever since. We used to clip newspapers. Now, almost all of our research is online. We've come a long way.
Randall Reinhardt, on October 12th, 2007 at 7:02 pm Said: Edit Comment
Shame, Shame is right. You ignored Dr. Phillip A. Sharp who won the Nobel in 1993 in medicine.He was born and raised in Pendleton Countyand won for his work in genetics. You’re messin’ with us hillbillies now and it doesn’t take a Nobel Laurate to know that ain’t right, or bright.