The concept of sister cities has its roots in war, namely the effort to avoid another large-scale international conflict.
"President Eisenhower started the sister City program in 1956, following World War II after it ended, and this was his idea of... if we're ever going to have world peace, we need to get to know each other," Kay Sargent explains.
Sergeant heads up Lexington's sister Cities Commission, which is no stranger to winning the international recognition. It's done so 11 times since 1989. In fact, Lexington has four sister cities: Deauville, France; County Kildare, Ireland; Shinhidaka, Japan; and Newmarket, England.
"And we all have the common bond of the horse, so they're all horse areas. And so we wanted to keep that as our bond," Sargent says. "It's not necessary to do that, but it's just something Lexington has chosen to do."
As for the award, Sergeant signed to a number of programs offered through the Commission from Citizen to citizen diplomacy to youth exchange opportunities.
