Important Contributors in Peace Activist Group
Aldon "Don" Bell
Worked several years at the University of Washington as a professor in history. He was also a dean of Continuing Education. During his time at this university, he also gained experience in business and even took part of anti-apartheid efforts in the 1970s.
He led a group of thirty-three individuals to Tashkent in 1983 to distribute letters that promoted amity and friendship between the countries with the Soviet Peace Committee in Moscow.
Husband of Betsy Bell and father to four daughters.
Betsy Bell
She was a member of the peace activist group that traveled to Tashkent.
She was a huge proponent in Target Seattle and taught classes and seminars at her local church.
She helped distribute letters and after the trip to Tashkent, she went to the Capitol Building to discuss the travelers’ recent peace achievements in Tashkent.
Marlow Boyer
A member of the peace activist group who traveled to Tashkent in 1983.He was still a student at the time, focusing on his graduate studies at the University of Washington.
He was very talented in photography and captured many photographs and videos on the trip.
Through capturing these exchanges, culture, and warm acceptance to the peace letters, he produced a film, People to People, that included all of his photographs and videos of the trip. Boyer used an artistic lens to depict the friendship among Tashkent and American individuals in order to discard any concerns for how USSR individuals are portrayed by the government or media.
Boyer was battling cancer at the time he put this film together and he was determined to shine a positive light on the travelers trip to Tashkent and the potential future USSR and America can have together.
He presented the film at the National Geographic Society and he discussed his experience in the USSR and the connections he saw among the Tashkent and American individuals.