Minidoka director Kurt Ikeda wins Idaho Humanity Council’s highest honor

The Idaho Humanities Council awarded Kurt Ikeda the 2021 Outstanding Achievement in Humanities Award, the organization’s highest honor, awarded annually to recognize achievements that encourage a better understanding of the humanities. 

Ikeda serves as the Minidoka National Historic Site’s director of education and interpretation and previously worked as an education specialist for southern Idaho parks. In 2018, he was an intern with Northwest Youth Corps. Before he began working for the National Park Service, Ikeda worked at the Japanese American Museum of Oregon, OCA Asian Pacific American Advocates and as a high school English teacher.

“The presence of Minidoka and the public programming connected to it has a local and global impact,” said humanities council executive director David Pettyjohn in a press release. “Kurt’s work exemplifies a critical aspect of the humanities, which is that knowledge of the most painful reminders of our past can and should provide an avenue to truly understand the issues that can lead to the erosion of civil liberties and basic human rights.”

Ikeda is a second generation Japanese American and a descendant of World War II incarceration survivors. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Los Angeles and earned a master’s from Loyola Marymount University. 

Ikeda will be honored at a reception at the Minidoka National Historic Site near Jerome on Aug. 15. Other recipients of the Outstanding Achievement in Humanities Award include former Idaho Gov. Robert Smylie, Moscow writer Mary Clearman Blew, Nez Perce elder Horace Axtell and many others. To learn more about the award, go to the Idaho Humanities Council website.