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The leadership and staff of the World Food Prize join in mourning the passing of Jean Kilpper, the wife of Herman Kilpper, the long-time Executive Director of the World Food Prize Foundation. Jean Kilper was an extremely warm and outgoing individual whose commitment to her family radiated all that she did. Together with Herman, they so ably and graciously represented the World Food Prize for a decade following its relocation to Iowa by John Ruan Sr. in 1990.
“I was so very pleased that I had an opportunity to meet Jean when I moved to Des Moines in 1999 to join the World Food Prize,” said Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, the President World Food Prize. “She and Herman made my wife, Le Son and I, feel so very welcome and a part of the organization from the first day that we arrived. All of Herman and Jean’s friends and colleagues at the Ruan Corporation and the World Food Prize Council of Advisors join with me in sending our most heart-felt condolences to Herman and the Kilpper Family on their loss.”