WASHINGTON, D.C.—An anonymous donor has provided more than $2 million to honor Barbara and Bernard Lomas, '46, by establishing a fellowship in their name at the Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom in Washington. Bernard Lomas was president of Albion College from 1970 to 1983 and has been counselor to the Heritage Foundation president for 25 years. The $2 million grant will help match the $3 million from the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

Lomas, a resident of Grand Rapids, has long been a proponent of friendly relations between Britain and the U.S., during times of peace and times of war. He also has worked to promote freedom around the globe.

“Lady Thatcher is one of the greatest political leaders of our time,” Lomas said. “I’m honored to be able to play a role in promoting her ideals through the Heritage Foundation.”

Nile Gardiner, a former aide to Lady Thatcher, will be the first Lomas Fellow. Gardiner is currently Heritage’s Fellow in Anglo-American Security Policy. He helped the former prime minister with her book, Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, and advised her on a number of international policy issues.

The United States and Great Britain have a long “special relationship.” As British prime minister from 1979 to 1990, Margaret Thatcher played a key role in strengthening that enduring alliance.

The Thatcher Center will work to strengthen relations between the U.S. and Britain by focusing on five major goals, including protecting and improving relations between the U.S. and Britain; advancing American and British interests in Europe; preserving American and British sovereignty against threats from the European Union and other organizations; promoting American and British joint leadership in the global war on terror; and defending the Anglo-American free-enterprise system and promoting it as the road to future prosperity and economic democracy.

“This will be Lady Thatcher’s most significant legacy in the United States,” Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner announced. “We at Heritage are honored that she would entrust that responsibility to us, and we will work tirelessly to promote the ideas she represents.”

[Compiled by Albion College Communications staff with information provided by Heritage Foundation]

 Back to Campus News

.