For the 11th year, the San Diego Mediation Center is handing out Peacemaker Awards to San Diegans, honoring them for their notable efforts to resolve community conflicts during 1998.
    "After the contentious, cantankerous year our country has just survived, hooray for anybody who's a peacemaker," says Liz O'Brien, president of the mediation center.
    This year’s recipients are:

• Jonathan Freedman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote a series of articles, "Hard Hopes," in the San Diego Union-Tribune about his year as a writing mentor in the San Diego schools. His stories detailed how refugee children from war-torn countries used writing as a tool to cope with a new culture, and chronicled how young people reacted nonviolently to conflict around them.
• Joyce and Don Musial, for their efforts to defuse a violent incident with teenagers in Mira Mesa. The Musials turned the confrontation into an opportunity to bring the diverse community together and reclaim Sandbury Park from gangs and neglect.
• Participants in the historic negotiations over Interstate 15 traffic congestion. The mediation center is honoring environmentalists, developers and community planning groups for their patience and perseverance in conducting a dialogue designed to find solutions to the growing traffic problems in the North County.
• San Diego Police Chief Jerry Sanders. The center is giving the outgoing chief (who is joining United Way) an award "for his years of exemplary leadership as a peacemaking chief of police who views policing as a community service and police officers as members of the communities they serve."

    The Peacemaker Awards dinner takes place March 19, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., at the San Diego Hilton Resort. Tickets are $65 each; $550 for a table. For more information, call 238-2400.

— Lynne Carrier