PARIS – Kevin Z. Thurston, formerly of Paris, graduated on May 22 with a master of arts degree in American foreign policy and international economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Thurston earned the Jerold and Myra Kempler Fellowship for academic excellence. He published essays on American Mideast policy in Jordan’s largest English daily newspaper, the Jordan Times, as well as in the Lewiston Sun Journal. He won an essay contest for a paper on the rise and decline of the oil-based economies of the Middle East. His MA thesis, “Preemption in American Foreign Policy: Exploring the Early Cold War Antecedents of the Bush Doctrine,” was awarded with distinction.

Thurston created and chaired a committee that established a memorial honoring the victims of Sept. 11, 2001, at the Johns Hopkins Bologna Center in Bologna, Italy, where he spent the first year of his two-year master’s program. In the summer between the program, he interned at the Bavarian American Academy and the Center for Applied Policy, both located in Munich, Germany.

He was accepted for admission to this fall’s class at the University of Maine School of Law in Portland. He has deferred enrollment. He is returning to Maine permanently and hopes to teach English or history at an area high school in the upcoming academic year.