Bush daughters accept award

OKLAHOMA CITY, April 21 (UPI) -- The twin daughters of former President George W. Bush accepted an award at a ceremony honoring victims of the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing.

Barbara Bush Pierce and Jenna Bush Hager accepted The Reflections of Hope Award, on behalf of the Bush family, from the Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation, The Oklahoman reported Thursday.

"The debris is gone and the building is no more," Bush Pierce said. "Now this is a place of peace and remembrance."

The award, first given in 2005 and arising from the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, "honors a living person or currently active organization whose conduct exemplifies in an extraordinary fashion two core beliefs of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation: that hope can survive and blossom amidst the tragedy and chaos of political violence and that, even in environments marred by such violence, peaceful, nonviolent approaches provide the best answers to human problems," the organization's Web site says.

Previous winners include Voice of Afghan Women Radio; Durga Ghimire, co-founder of a community organization improving the lives of marginalized people in Ramechhap, Nepal; Seeds of Peace, a program comprised of Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian teenagers working for mutual understanding; Father Alex Reid, working for peace in Northern Ireland; and former President Bill Clinton.