Additional Statements, Recognizing Sun Woo Park

Floor Speech

Ms. AYOTTE. Madam President, today I wish to recognize Portsmouth resident grand master Sun Woo Park--an exceptional New Hampshire citizen who has devoted his life to teaching martial arts and serving his community.

Sun Woo Park immigrated to the United States from Korea in 1985. Shortly after settling in Portsmouth, he opened Park's Taekwondo School, a world-class taekwondo training center. In fact, Park's is one of the only taekwondo schools in the world to have eight practicing Masters who learned under the same grand master.

During his nearly three decades of teaching taekwondo, thousands of seacoast area students have developed self-esteem, self-control, confidence, and fitness through studying the key elements of martial arts. Sun Woo Park even brought taekwondo to the University of New Hampshire, founding a taekwondo club there in 1995.

On June 16, 2000, Sun Woo Park proudly became a U.S. citizen. True citizenship means serving your country, your community, and your fellow citizens, and Sun Woo Park has done just that.

He is a founding member and the current president of the Korean American Society of New Hampshire. Every year since 1987, he has organized an event to honor the brave service and sacrifice of New Hampshire's Korean War veterans. He has even been honored by the President of the Republic of Korea, Noh Moo Hyun, for his service on behalf of Korean war veterans.

Sun Woo Park has also been quietly helping his local community in many other ways. He is held numerous fundraisers in support of the Saint Charles Children's Home in Rochester, NH, as well as many other local schools and nonprofits.

I am pleased to join the citizens of New Hampshire and all of grand master Sun Woo Park's students in wishing him all the best in his future endeavors. We thank him for his many years of teaching and service to the State of New Hampshire

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