The Mondale Award Selection Committee is thrilled to present the 2025 Mondale Award to JoAnn Blatchley. JoAnn exemplifies the values and characteristics that the Mondales prescribed for recipients of this award. JoAnn's curiosity and compassion for people from different cultures was proven during her 30-year career as an English as a Second Language teacher in the Edina Public Schools. Not stopping there, her achievements with the St. Paul-Nagasaki Sister City Committee and the effects of her accomplishments are many and deep.
Since 1997, the Mondale Award for Japan-Minnesota Partnership is presented annually by JASM to recognize outstanding contributions to the building of understanding, cooperation and respect between the people of Japan and Minnesota, just as its namesakes, Joan and Walter Mondale, intended.
Kat Dalager, JASM President and Mondale Award Selection Committee Chair
JoAnn Blatchley, Recipient of the Mondale Citation – In Her Own Words
My first visit to Japan changed my life. In 2004, I received a Fulbright Memorial Fund for Teachers fellowship to spend three weeks in Japan, visiting schools, being exposed to Japanese culture, and traveling by bullet train to Hiroshima. I returned from that experience and wondered what else could I do continue my association with Japan and found the Saint Paul – Nagasaki Sister City Committee which promotes friendship between citizens of both countries. It was a perfect fit.
One of my first ‘duties’ as an SPNSCC board member was to make arrangements for Sachiko Yasui, a hibakusha, to speak. Highlights of my tenure as board member and president of SPNSCC include the Gift of (Cherry) Trees from the government of Japan to St. Paul in 2012 and the Return of the Sword in 2013. Our 60th anniversary in 2015 included kite flyers Seikoo and Akiko Nakamura, visits by Mayor Tomihisa Taue, the Junshin singers, city officials and ten members of the Nagasaki Bridge Club. One highlight was the Hiroshima Nagasaki Peace Exhibition at the Landmark Center, which also brought groups of school children to the exhibit and “Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard.” The pandemic cancelled our 65th anniversary celebration, but exchanges resumed in 2023.
To celebrate our 70th anniversary in 2025, the Saint Paul Civic Symphony performed with their sister orchestra, the Nagasaki Symphony Orchestra. Saint Paul hosted our annual Cherry Tree Celebration, drawing some 1,000 visitors in early May. American children and youth finished the KIDS GUERNICA mural. Mayor Suzuki of Nagasaki brought a delegation of city council members, Rotarians and 16 junior high students in late August. Some twenty five Minnesotans will travel to Nagasaki for Okunchi in October.
It has been a privilege to be part of the Sister City legacy. We are an all-volunteer organization, proving Margaret Mead’s quotation: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has". Thank you.
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Please join us for the Mondale Gala 2025 to celebrate the Mondale Award recipient and take part in this special evening on Saturday, November 15th at the Oak Ridge Country Club in Hopkins.
Do you need Kimono dressing assistance? Registration will be open soon.
Early Bird (register by Oct. 17)
$160/ Non-member
$110/ JASM member
Regular (register Oct. 18 - Oct. 31)
$190/ Non-member
$130/ JASM member
Post-Deadline (register Nov. 1 - Nov. 9)
$210/Non-Member
$150/Member
JASM invites you to become a member! Please sign up here and then register for the Mondale Gala 2025.
jasm@mn-japan.org
P.O. Box 26639
Minneapolis, MN 55426
