A longtime educator and peace advocate from Bloomington has died.
Joe Grabill, 95, died Wednesday at OSF St. Joseph Medical Center, according to his obituary.
Grabill taught history and peace studies during a 33-year career at Illinois State University, where he helped establish the Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies minor, according to ISU archives.
Grabill was active in helping to establish friendly relations with the Soviet Union. He served as president of the Vladimir-Canterbury Sister City Association of Bloomington-Normal, a partnership that has endured for nearly four decades.
“It’s not about politics, it’s about friendship, or as we sometimes say ‘arms are for embracing.’ ” Grabill said in a 2019 WGLT interview.
Friends, family and colleagues established the Grabill-Homan Peace Prize in 2001 in honor of Grabill and fellow professor Gerlof Homan. While both were teaching at ISU during the Cold War in the late 1970s, they turned their research toward peace studies.
The scholarship supports peace education activities.
Arrangements are pending at Calvert and Metzler Memorial Home in Bloomington.
