January 1, 2018 Amb. Kenneth Quinn
In October at the Iowa Hunger Summit, a special recognition took place of the individuals who played a central role in the historic Iowa SHARES campaign in 1979 that supplied life-saving food and medicine and sent volunteer Iowa doctors and nurses to the Cambodian border in Thailand to aid the Cambodian victims of genocide. In October 1979, Governor Ray and Ambassador Quinn had observed over 30,000 starving refugees who were dying at the rate of 50 to 100 a day. Upon returning to Iowa, the Governor established Iowa SHARES with Quinn as its leader. SHARES stood for Send Help to Aid Refugees and End Starvation. Ambassador Quinn served as Executive Director of that 1979 campaign. In September 2018, Scott Raecker, the head of the Robert D. and Billie Ray Center at Drake University, stated that Governor Ray’s last public act before passing away in July 2018 was to direct that this award be presented to Ambassador Quinn.