The Morningside College Alumni Association recently presented the 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award to Ken Tanimoto and an Honorary Alumni Award to his sister Koko Tanimoto Kondo.

The siblings grew up in Hiroshima, Japan, during the time of the atomic bomb and its aftermath.

Ken Tanimoto double majored in physics and math at Morningside College, graduating in 1971. After graduation, he joined the Nippon Airways pilot training program in England, receiving his commercial pilot license. He eventually returned to Hiroshima, where he worked for nearly 40 years with Shinko Industries, a marine pump and turbine manufacturer for ships and mega power plants worldwide.

Koko Tanimoto Kondo was 8 months old and less than one mile from the hypocenter of the blast when the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. She grew up amid the destruction of the city and witnessed the physical, emotional and mental effects that accompanied it. She went to college at American University in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1969, and has since devoted her life to sharing the stories of those affected by the bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The siblings came to Morningside College this spring for a weeklong visit. During that time, they spoke to college classes, high school classes and community organizations; gave a community lecture; and talked with Morningside students and professors about the book “Hiroshima” by Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Hersey. Their father, the Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, was one of six atomic bomb survivors to be featured in the book. The book tells of their father’s unrelenting efforts to help victims both right after the bomb and many years later.