The Stalking Prevention, Awareness, & Resource Center (SPARC) is delighted to announce the Peggy Klinke Award. This new annual award honors an individual doing outstanding work on behalf of victims and survivors of stalking. The Klinke Award will be presented each January — National Stalking Awareness Month — to highlight and express gratitude for incredible efforts to enhance responses to stalking victimization in the United States.
2025 Nominations: Click here to nominate someone for the 2025 Award.
Nominations close December 1, 2024.
About the award:
Peggy Klinke was brutally murdered by a stalker on January 18, 2003. A year later, her sister Debbie Riddle — in collaboration with members of Congress and the National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC) — successfully launched the first National Stalking Awareness Month. “Knowing Peggy’s personality, she would have been on her cell phone at my funeral trying to take action,” Debbie says, “trying to make something good come out of something so tragic.” This award aims to honor Peggy’s legacy and thank incredible people like Debbie who are making a difference in the lives of stalking victims and survivors. Learn more about Peggy’s story here.
Eligibility:
It takes all of us — advocacy and support services, legal systems, and victims/survivors and their friends and family — to better recognize and respond to stalking. Eligible nominees include (but are not limited to) victim service providers, campus professionals, public awareness educators, law enforcement, attorneys, activists, and survivors located in the United States. The nominees will be reviewed by SPARC staff and an advisory team of stalking survivors.
Past Winners
2024: Debbie Riddle
Debbie Riddle became an advocate for stalking awareness when her youngest sister and the award’s namesake, Peggy Klinke, was murdered by a stalker on January 18, 2003. The month after Peggy’s murder, Debbie began to speak out about stalking, using Peggy’s story as a catalyst for change, and she is now one of the country’s leading speakers on stalking and has made strides toward changing the way communities deal with stalking crimes. Just a few months after Peggy’s murder, Debbie began advocating for the U.S. Congress to recognize January as National Stalking Awareness Month (NSAM), and Congress recognized the first annual NSAM the following year. In 2022, Debbie was awarded the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the state of North Carolina for all her efforts to promote stalking awareness. It is the highest honor a state employee may receive for dedicated service to the State of North Carolina and its residents. Today, she continues to speak at training sessions, webinars, college campus trainings, high school and youth groups throughout the U.S. Debbie was the first recipient of the Peggy Klinke Award.