Kengor named inaugural Lee Edwards Award winner

Grove City College Professor of Political Science Dr. Paul Kengor has received the Lee Edwards Award for Scholarship from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC).

Kengor accepted the award recently at a VOC event in Washington, D.C.

“Paul Kengor is a master educator, superb writer, and excellent communicator. His work blends first-rate research with brilliant storytelling,” Dr. Eric Patterson, VOC’s president and CEO said.

The Lee Edwards Award for Scholarship is VOC's signature honor recognizing outstanding academic achievement. It is named for VOC co-founder and chairman emeritus Dr. Lee Edwards, a respected historian of contemporary American history and political thought who wrote “Freedom’s College,” the official history of Grove City College.

The award recognizes Kengor’s robust scholarship on Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and communism and his prolific public commentary on current events, which appears in a variety of outlets, including The American Spectator, where Kengor serves as editor.

Kengor said he was touched to receive the Edwards award because of the close friendship they developed after meeting in 1999 while Edwards was researching his history of Grove City College. Kengor said Edwards’ help was “indispensable” in writing his 2006 book “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and Fall of Communism,” which became the basis of the recently released movie “Reagan.”

“I have the greatest respect for Lee Edwards. Like me, he is a biographer of Ronald Reagan – he actually published the first biography of Reagan in 1967 – and has spent decades studying and writing about communism, the Cold War, and the conservative movement,” Kengor said. “He has influenced my scholarship and life in so many ways. He’s a wonderful man and I’m honored to accept this award.”

In addition to teaching at Grove City College and serving as executive director of The Institute for Faith & Freedom, Kengor is a New York Times best-selling author, with nearly 20 books to his credit. In addition to “The Crusader,” they include “A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century,” “The Devil and Karl Marx,” and “God and Ronald Reagan.” He is a member of VOC's Academic Council.

Founded in 1993, VOC is an educational, research, and human rights nonprofit organization devoted to commemorating the more than 100 million people killed by communism around the world and to pursuing the freedom of those still living under totalitarian regimes.

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