Tom Brokaw to Receive LaDonna Zall Compassionate Witness Award

Tom Brokaw at the grand opening of Heart Mountain Interpretive Center in 2011, with former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation Chair Shirley Ann Higuchi, and former U.S. senator from Wyoming Alan Simpson. (Photo by Don Tanguilig)

POWELL, Wyo. — Legendary newscaster and author Tom Brokaw will receive the third LaDonna Zall Compassionate Witness Award during the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation’s annual pilgrimage on Saturday, July 27, at the location of the World War II Japanese American confinement site.

Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation Chair Shirley Ann Higuchi announced the award during the foundation’s latest board meeting in Washington, D.C. “We have been honored with Tom’s support since the day we opened the doors to our interpretive center, and we want to show our appreciation,” she said.

Since speaking at the 2011 grand opening of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center, Brokaw has continued to report on the injustice of the Japanese American incarceration, including an NBC News report marking the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066 in 2017.

“I am greatly honored to be a part of the testimonial to the heroic Japanese American citizens who endured the cruel incarceration during WWII,” Brokaw said. “What happened at Heart Mountain should be taught to every succeeding generation of American schoolchildren.”

Created in 1996, the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation has worked to preserve the site where almost 14,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during. LaDonna Zall is a Powell resident who witnessed the final train of prisoners leaving Heart Mountain in 1945 and was instrumental in building the interpretive center and curating its artifact collection.

For more information, call (307) 754-8000 or visit www.heartmountain.org.