The U.S. House of Representatives seemed to dillydally forever before acting on a bill the Senate passed in September to bestow the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor, on native Iowan Norman Borlaug, the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who founded the World Food Prize.

The legislation authorizing the Gold Medal to Borlaug nearly died in the House because it lacked enough co-sponsors (at least two-thirds of the members must sign on). Some members of Congress may have been asking themselves: “Norman who?”

Borlaug pioneered an agricultural revolution has been credited with saving 1 billion lives, more than any person who ever lived, but except among Iowans and groups focused on preventing hunger and famine and uplifting humanity, he’s relatively unknown. That’s a big part of the conundrum Des Moines and Iowa face in trying to give the World Food Prize, which Borlaug established in 1986, the prominence it deserves.

Having a native of the state receive the Gold Medal is a jewel in our state’s crown, but in typical Iowa fashion, we’re as likely as not to mention it humbly as an afterthought, if at all. We should shout about it and exploit it, in them most positive sense of the word, and do more to promote Iowa’s role in easing world hunger.

With the Internet providing more opportunities for real-time delivery of news, Andy Warhol’s 1968 pronouncement, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,” is probably too generous. We are about to get one of our best opportunities ever to be in the spotlight for 15 minutes and focus on a single issue: the global role Iowa has played and continues to play in ending famine and giving hope to countries where starvation is an everyday occurrence.

World Food Prize Foundation President Kenneth Quinn has set the ambitious goal that the prize will one day be regarded as the “Nobel Prize of agriculture.” That’s still hyperbole at this point and the prize is years away from such top-of-mind-awareness, but yet-to-be scheduled ceremonies in the Capitol Rotunda to honor Borlaug will be a rare – and fleeting – opportunity to answer once and for all the question “Norman who?”