Legislation to rename South Bridge after a 1938 Lewiston High School graduate who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize gets a public hearing Tuesday.

Al Harvie of Auburn will be in the crowd. He wouldn’t miss it.

“I have to be there,” he said. “I started the whole thing, I wouldn’t stop now.”

The proposal in front of the Legislature’s Transportation Committee: rename South Bridge the Bernard Lown Peace Bridge.

Harvie approached the Twin Cities mayors last year about recognizing Lown. To escape the Holocaust, Lown had moved to Lewiston as a boy to live with his uncle, Phillip Lown. Phillip owned the Lown Shoe Shop in Auburn.

Bernard Lown graduated from the University of Maine, then Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He also holds an honorary degree from Bates College.

Lown has had a long career in medicine – helping develop the defibrillator, among many achievements. In 1985, he won the Nobel Peace Prize with a former Soviet professor Lown worked with to show that no one would win in a nuclear war between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Harvie heard Lown speak more than 20 years ago at Bates.

“I was just so surprised that his name wasn’t anywhere in town,” Harvie said.

The Auburn and Lewiston city councils last summer unanimously supported the idea to rename the bridge, which spans the Androscoggin River, connecting the two cities.

Lown, now 86, lives in Massachusetts. The doctor has told Lewiston Mayor Larry Gilbert that he would be honored by the move.

The final name change is up to the Legislature because it is a state bridge. Harvie said he couldn’t imagine legislators not supporting it.

“If there’s a cost factor we can raise money privately,” he said.

Auburn Mayor John Jenkins said the change would be a “great celebration for our community” – another reason for L-A to be in the spotlight.

Gilbert plans to speak in front of the committee Tuesday, maybe even reading an excerpt from an essay by Lown that provides some insight into the person behind all the honors.

“He’s quite a fine man,” Gilbert said. ” ‘If you’re down my way,’ he says, ‘give me a call, we’ll break bread’ … I’m really looking forward to meeting him in person.”

The bill is sponsored by state Rep. Richard Wagner, D-Lewiston, who argued to get it considered during this emergency session so Lown, still in good health, could be here for any celebration.