2010 Honorary Award Recipients

  • Carol and Ken Masters

    Carol and Ken Masters of Minneapolis have been faithful peace and social justice activists for many years, with a focus on the arms trade and its connections to worldwide violence and poverty.

    Up until 1983, Carol and Ken had opposed nuclear weapons but had not taken action beyond writing letters and baking bread for the Minnesota Women’s Peace Encampment which was protesting Sperry, a weapons contractor. One day, Sperry bulldozed the camp and Carol, who was there at the time, got
    arrested for the first time. The couple joined Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) to learn more about the arms race and militarism. The communities that grew up around WAMM and People Against Military Madness (PAMM), an affinity group of the Honeywell Project, prepared and supported the couple in the decades to follow as they took part in vigils, marched and sometimes were arrested at the doors of arms merchants and policymakers. Carol has served a number of sentences in jail for her
    participation in nonviolent protests.

    The couple became part of the Honeywell Project and with others, founded and served on the board of the Midwest Institute for Social Transformation, which focused on education and training for nonviolent social change. Carol was assistant director for the Minnesota Peace and Justice Coalition from 1988 to 1991. From 1996 on, they protested at the doors of Alliant Techsystems, which manufactured land mines, cluster bombs and depleted uranium munitions. In 1999, Carol and Ken began participating in peace vigils on the Lake Street Bridge in Minneapolis. As part of the Community of St. Martin, they have taken part in vigils at the School of Americas at Fort Benning for many years.

    Carol has served terms of the WAMM steering committee during the 1990s and is currently co-chair of its board of directors. Ken has been a WAMM volunteer in many capacities. An accomplished professional writer and editor, Carol maintains the web site as a volunteer for People of Faith Peacemakers. Carol’s collection of short stories entitled The Peace Terrorist was a Minnesota Voices winner and nominee for the Minnesota Book Award in 1994. She is the author of You Can’t Do That: Marv Davidov, Nonviolent Revolutionary, which was published by Nodin Press in 2009.

    The Masters have been active with many community organizations including Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels and with several food-related projects for children, low-income families and people with HIV/AIDS.

  • Mary Lou Nelson

    A former teacher and licensed real estate broker, Mary Lou Nelson of Minneapolis has devoted herself to the cause of peace throughout her life.

    She has been involved with the United Nations Association (UNA) since its establishment in 1945. At that time, she was a senior high school teacher and taught her students about the important role this organization would have in preserving global peace. She met Eleanor Roosevelt at a rally in Minneapolis for the UN, and thereafter became a leader in both the Minnesota affiliate of UNA and served on the board of directors of the national organization from 1975 to 1995. In her work with UNA, she chaired many national conferences, created a dialogue process for various constituencies, spoke to many groups, raised money and produced videos, including one about the life of former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen,
    a delegate to the 1945 conference that helped start the UN. In 1995, she helped produce a program entitled “The United Nations through the Eyes of Women.”

    She has been an active member of numerous community organizations, including the American Association of University Women (AAUW). She served as AAUW president for two years and also vice president for legislative programs and international representative among her many contributions.

    In 1995, Nelson worked to fulfill a dream of bringing Minnesota peace organizations together under an umbrella organization to strengthen their voice and leverage their power to bring about change. She and a small group of other peace activists helped launch a new organization — the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers (MAP) — and she served as its first vice president and chair of the program committee. She has been a delegate to the MAP council and continues as an active MAP member.

  • Rev. Dr. James Siefkes

    For more than 50 years, Jim Siefkes of Minneapolis has been a courageous voice for justice and understanding in the Lutheran Church and beyond. A graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, TX, and Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, IA, he served two parishes before moving to regional and national positions within the church. Through his development and direction of the Department of Congregational Social Concerns in the national office of the ALC (later the ELCA), he worked with local parishes and discovered there was little awareness of mission beyond traditional understandings and practice. He designed a program to broaden the understanding of mission, bringing together groups of clergy, spouses and laity to "hold class" on the streets and in the throes of the issues of the day — racism, drugs, campus riots, ecology, the Vietnam war, conscription, conscientious objection, runaway kids, emerging lifestyles, women's issues, men's issues, hunger, singles, and human sexuality. Through this work, Siefkes helped introduce social justice and ministry on the side of people suffering from oppression as critical to understanding the mission of the church.

    Siefkes pioneered convergence between national religious bodies, sexuality and science with special care given to the areas of sexual health and sexual orientation as well as physical, psychological and intellectual disability. He was one of the founders of the Program for Human Sexuality (PHS) at the University of Minnesota as well as several other programs and institutions that provide effective services locally and nationally and that provided information internationally.

    Siefkes's work has been featured in the national press and he worked with ABC for two documentary TV shows on Christianity and sexuality issues. He served for seven years on the board of Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) and on the Venereal Disease Committee of the Boy Scouts of America. He has authored articles and books on sexuality. His work has also touched the lives of Native Americans, black Americans and traumatized veterans.