South KC Perspective
Tree of Peace Medal
By John Sharp
Ross Marine, a south Kansas City resident and civic leader who is Honorary Counsel of the Slovak Republic to the Midwest, has received the first Memorial Tree of Peace Medal for his leadership in arranging for a Tree of Peace to be planted in June 2019 on the north lawn of the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City.
The Tree of Peace project, initiated in the Slovak Republic on the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, is designed to promote a message of the need for peace and friendship among all nations and the senselessness of military conflicts that take a terrible toll on human life and on nature itself.
The effort is endorsed by the Slovak Republic Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.
The project hopes to plant at least one Tree of Peace on every continent, and so far has planted 15 trees in nine different countries. The tree at the World War I Museum and Memorial is the only one planted to date in the U.S.
Marine’s medal was presented by the Slovak Republic civic association Servare et Manere.