Oprah fan club has Nobel goal

A local group has organized a petition drive to nominate television talk show host Oprah Winfrey for the Nobel Peace Prize next year.

About 10 District-area members of the unofficial Oprah Winfrey for the Nobel Peace Prize Fan Club say Miss Winfrey’s humanitarian work, generous giving and “high fashion” makes her worthy of such an honor.

“This is something that’s been inspired by God,” said Rocky Twyman, 56, a devoted Oprah fan from Rockville who is leading the petition drive. “It’s a grass-roots campaign in its very beginning stages.”

Yesterday, Mr. Twyman and the group canvassed the area around the Friendship Heights Metro station in Northwest to collect enough signatures that they hope will result in Miss Winfrey’s nomination.

Mr. Twyman and the other fan club members say Miss Winfrey deserves the award because of her willingness to devote large sums of her own money to international aid work.

Miss Winfrey’s charities include Oprah’s Angel Network, which helps poverty-stricken children worldwide. She recently donated $1 million to the U.S. Dream Academy Inc., a Maryland-based organization that provides emotional and educational support for children whose parents are incarcerated.

Miss Winfrey, her spokesman and a spokesman for the Nobel Peace Prize did not return telephone calls for comment yesterday.

Miss Winfrey was brought up in Mississippi and worked as a television news anchor in Baltimore in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Her daily television talk show draws about 6 million viewers a week.

Mr. Twyman, who owns a public-relations firm, said he felt inspired by God to start his fan club and petition drive during a May 24 dinner at which Miss Winfrey spoke. The dinner was held in honor of Miss Winfrey’s donation to the Dream Academy.

“It was divinely inspired because it just really hit me that this is a person that deserves this award. I was just really impressed,” said Mr. Twyman, who watches the Oprah show daily when it is rebroadcast at 1:05 a.m. on WJLA-TV (Channel 7).

The signature-gathering process was slow-going yesterday. There were not as many people at the Metro stop as he expected, Mr. Twyman said.

Helping Mr. Twyman gather signatures was his niece Amber Geer, 15, of Germantown.

Amber said she has been an Oprah fan since she was 9 and hopes to someday go to an Oprah show taping in Chicago.

“Her fashion is an inspiration,” said Amber, who is an aspiring model. “She’s an inspiration because she’s set a standard to reach out to other people in other countries.”

Mr. Twyman and Amber gathered the signatures on blank sheets of white paper. After about 45 minutes of asking every person who passed by to sign the petition, the two had collected 10 signatures.

Not everyone asked yesterday thought Miss Winfrey deserves the prestigious award.

“I don’t see anything that she’s done to deserve this,” said Dwan Brooks, 47, of Gaithersburg. “I just see her as promoting the system of the rich and famous.”

The group hopes to gather at least 100,000 signatures by September. Mr. Twyman will take his drive on the road — to St. Louis, New York City, Los Angeles and Atlanta — in the coming months to inspire people to participate.

Those who can nominate a person for the Nobel Peace Prize are: former laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize; members of national assemblies and state governments; members of international courts of law; present and past members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; former advisers at the Norwegian Nobel Institute; university chancellors; professors of social science, history, philosophy, law and theology; and leaders of peace research institutes and institutes of foreign affairs.

Mr. Twyman plans to send his 100,000 signatures and nomination petition to Nobel Peace Prize winners Nelson Mandela and former President Jimmy Carter. He hopes that the men will send it on to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, a group of five officials nominated by the Norwegian Parliament who decide which candidate will receive the prize.

The committee receives about 140 nominations each year. Nominations must be received by February of the year of the award. The committee selects the winner in October. The Peace Prize is awarded annually Dec. 10, the day on which Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Prize, died in 1896.