The Bill Emerson and Mickey Leland Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to an individual who has shown strong leadership in promoting U.S. and global food security throughout their career. This year we recognize U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who has embodied the bipartisan spirit and dedication to ending hunger shared by the award’s namesakes throughout his tenure in Congress.

Born in Niangua, Missouri, Senator Blunt began his career as a teacher and university professor. Senator Blunt's Senate career has been marked with strong bipartisan cooperation and a longstanding commitment to fighting hunger and child nutrition. In 2019, Senator Blunt sponsored the Global Child Thrive Act, which passed into law earlier this year. The legislation strengthens implementation of policies that advance early childhood development in all child-focused foreign assistance programs. In June 2021, Senator Blunt joined in sponsoring the Hunger-Free Summer for Kids Act, which would give the USDA more flexibility in delivering the Summer Food Service Program.

The people of Southwest Missouri overwhelmingly elected Senator Blunt seven times to the U.S. House of Representatives, beginning with his first term in 1996; he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010. Senator Blunt was elected the Majority Whip earlier in his career than any Member of Congress in eight decades and was elected to the Senate leadership in his first year in the Senate. A fifth-generation Missourian and the first person in his family to graduate from college, before he entered politics Senator Blunt also served four years as the president of Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri. Senator Blunt is married to Abigail Blunt and has four children and six grandchildren.