Lon BurnamLon BurnamDirector@DallasPeaceCenter.org
Lon has served as director of the Dallas Peace Center since May of 2000. In addition to his part time role as director of the Center he has served as an elected State Representative from Fort Worth in the Texas legislature since 1997.
Burnam has worked as both a volunteer and in professional capacities in the peace movement since his undergraduate days at the University of Texas – Austin during the Vietnam Ware era in the mid 1970’s.
In addition to work as the state director of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign in the mid 1980’s Burnam served as the first non-Mennonite director of the DPC from July 1987 to July 1989. He also served as a board member of the DPC in the early 1990’s.
In his legislative career Burnam has received numerous awards including the 2000 Racial Justice and Reconciliation Award given by the Tarrant Area Community of Churches and in July of 2000, REACH, Inc., presented him with the ADA award for disability advocacy. In the fall of 1999, Lon received the "Millennium Conservation Award" from the Texas Committee on Natural Resources. Burnam was the recipient of the 1997 "New Leadership for the Environment" Award from the Texas Chapter of the Sierra Club.
He has been married to Carol Roark since 1979. They purchased a 1913 wood frame bungalow in the Fairmont neighborhood of Fort Worth in 1981, where, together with their two cats, they make their home today.
Trish Majoradmin@DallasPeaceCenter.org
Trish Major came to work at the Dallas Peace Center on January of 2004. She had been a volunteer at the Peace Center since 1986, when she was recruited to hand address invitations to the first Peacemaker Awards Dinner. Trish graduated from Colorado College with an English degree, worked for a year at a trade magazine in Denver, then moved to Dallas in 1983 when she married a Texan. In Dallas she worked for the Dallas Times Herald until the day her first child Robyn was born in 1989, then stayed home to raise her, and later her sister Rosie. Trish took a part time job as secretary of her church in 2001.
Trish began her tenure in the North Texas peace movement by joining Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) soon after she moved to Dallas. During the years she had little children, she worked on the DPC’s Starting Young Committee and helped develop the curriculum “Tools for Solving Conflicts” which the team used with many youth and children’s groups. She regularly helped out with the production and distribution of the Dallas Peace Times and the New Peace Times under several different editors. After her girls both started school Trish began volunteering regularly in the Peace Center office. Trish’s daughters, Robyn, now a sophomore at UT-Austin, and Rosie, a junior at the Science and Engineering Magnet high school consistently challenge her peacemaking skills. Her husband, Tracy Curts, works as the director of the Uptown Public Improvement District.
Daniel WilliamsOffice@DallasPeaceCenter.org
Daniel Williams moved to the Dallas area in 1998 to attend the University of North Texas. In 2002 he graduated with a degree in business with the specific desire to work for small non-profits. Daniel has worked for the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Churches, The Advisory Board to the Booker T. Washington School for the Performing Arts, and currently the Dallas Peace Center. He has volunteered extensively with AIDS services of North Texas (recognized for his work in 2002), Harvest MCC (Volunteer of the Year in 2001), Youth First Texas, Family Gateway and the Resource Center of Dallas.
In addition to his non-profit and charitable work he is also a painter and textile artist who has been published in knit.1, Craft and Dallas Home Magazines. His paintings can be seen regularly at showings in the Dallas area.
Daniel lives in the historic Oaklawn neighborhood of Dallas with his partner Jason Brunelle and their two dogs: Bohéme and Tosca.
Zara TariqZara@DallasPeaceCenter.org
Zara was born in Karachi. Pakistan, and moved to the United States when she was 9 years old. She graduated from the University of North Texas last semester, with a major in Political Science and a minor in Women’s Studies and Social Services.
During her last year at UNT Zara decided she wanted to supplement her “book work” with some experience and, upon the recommendation of a professor, took an internship with the DPC.
Zara attributes her interest in global issues in part to her personal background. “As a Pakistani American, I was raised in a diverse environment,” she said. “So I have a desire to explore many different cultures as a way of justing finding my own identity.”
Zara has volunteered with Literacy for Life, tutoring adults, mostly from the Middle East, to speak and write in English. Zara speaks three languages fluently – Urdu, Hindi and English – and speaks a little French.
She has also volunteered in a nursing home, dealing with patients suffering from dementia and Alzheimers. “So I speak that language, as well,” she says.
Zara has a realistic attitude about peacework. She said, “Peace isn’t something you hope happens someday – you have to keep working at it. You start working on something that is small and it gets larger – that in itself is a reward.
To relax, Zara likes to go to independent and foreign films. She loves Italian and Thai food, and proclaims, “The best restaurants are the holes in the wall.”