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                        You're the one, Rosalie Brown Thunder

                             who taught at the school
                             which encouraged the students
                             who sat in the sweat lodge
                             which melted self-hate
                             and brought forth a spirit
                             which led them to drum
                             and led them to to compute
                             and led them to lead
                             the younger students
                             away from destruction
                             and back into pride.

She was a ten-year old migrant worker, picking string beans by the highway and watching the expensive cars whizzing past, when Rosalie Brown Thunder decided she was going to "go as far as I can go."

That early determination led her from a two-room schoolhouse in black River Falls, to a Master's degree at Penn State, to a decade as principal at the Heart of the Earth Survival School in Minneapolis' Dinkytown area. There she has guided 200 Native American children away from violence and toward peace with one simple philosophy. "Know your heritage, know your language," she says, "and the rest will fall into place."

Now that she's raised her three sons (one enters UCLA Law School this year), she's going back to school herself for a PhD. in education. "I'm just a teacher at heart," she smiles. With a heart like that, Rosalie Brown Thunder truly is the one who can make the peace. Let us be the ones she inspires.

The Minnesota Peace Prize. It's for people like Rosalie Brown Thunder. The award recognizes demonstrated leadership and long-term commitment to promoting peace and preventing violence.