LEWISTON – Bernard Lown, a Lewiston High School graduate from the class of 1938 who received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work against nuclear war, will be on hand for the dedication Friday as the South Bridge linking Lewiston and Auburn becomes the Bernard Lown Peace Bridge.

The public is invited to the ribbon-cutting on the bridge between 10:15 and 10:30 a.m. People are encouraged to gather first outside the Franco-American Heritage Center.

Lown moved to Lewiston as a teenager from Lithuania and worked in his uncle’s shoe shop in Auburn. In 1985, as a cardiologist, he received the Nobel Peace Prize with Russian cardiologist Eugene Chazov. The two co-founded International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

Lown, 87, now lives in Massachusetts and summers in Naples.

An invitation-only ceremony for donors, legislators, Lewiston and Auburn mayors and local leaders will start the morning off at 9:30 at the Franco-American Heritage Center on Cedar Street.

At 10:15, Lown and his wife, Louise, will be picked up outside the center in an antique car and driven to the middle of the bridge, led by the Auburn High School band, said Dottie Perham-Whittier, Lewiston community relations coordinator.

Once on the Auburn side of the bridge, they’ll unveil the first of two granite monuments for Lown.

Then, “we’ll turn the car and the band around and do the same thing on the Lewiston side,” Perham-Whittier said.

At 10:45, back at the Franco center, the public is invited to a cheese and fruit reception with Lown.

Gov. John Baldacci has proclaimed Friday “Bernard Lown Day.”

Despite a slow start, a committee for the event raised $24,515 for the monuments and to cover the costs of Friday’s ceremony, Perham-Whittier said.

To clear the way for the bridge ceremony, traffic will be blocked from the intersection of Lincoln and Cedar streets in Lewiston and from Broad Street and Riverside Drive in Auburn from 9:45 to 11 a.m.

– Kathryn Skelton