Peace pole to be unveiled

by CANDACE CHASE/Daily Inter Lake
| September 9, 2011 7:45 PM

At noon Monday, Northwest Healthcare invites the public to a dedication and unveiling of a new peace pole in front of Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

Coordinated with the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack, the dedication of the peace pole, inscribed “May Peace Prevail on Earth,” provides a silent vigil to that universal goal.

Chief Medical Officer Dr. Craig Eddy and Sister Roxanne Dolak worked together to bring the monument to the medical campus.

Rev. Carolyn Kuhr, chaplain at Kalispell Regional Medical Center, said the pole will stand in the grassy area near the buffalo sculpture. The area also has U.S., Montana and Canadian flags.

“It’s intended to be something people can walk around and meditate on peace,” Kuhr said.

She said the peace pole installation also coordinates with the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps, which is scheduled Sept. 21 to 24.

More than 200,000 peace poles have been erected in more than 200 countries since a Japanese woman, Masahisa Goi, first proposed the idea in 1955 and the first peace poles were built in Japan in 1983.

The Kalispell pole will carry “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in eight languages: Blackfoot, Salish, Gaelic, Russian, Japanese, French, English and Spanish.

The World Peace Prayer Society has overseen the erection of many of the worldwide peace poles. They vary in size from small and wooden to tall granite monuments with text carved, etched or painted.

One of the tallest is 52 feet in Janesville, Wis., at a former Ku Klux Klan rally site. One of heaviest was a granite peace pole placed in Cincinnati’s Beach Acres Park, inspired after Jewish residents found hate literature left in their driveways.

The Monday dedication features a welcome by Eddy. Dolak will follow with a reading from Matthew 5:9 — “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”