Dalai Lama returning to Idaho

BOISE – The Dalai Lama plans to make his second visit to Idaho in less than four years, with the Tibetan spiritual leader due to attend the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics 2009 World Winter Games in February.

The ceremony is to be held at Nampa’s Idaho Center on Feb. 7.

The games run through Feb. 13.

Special Olympics board member Pirie Grossman said Tuesday that the 73-year-old 1989 Nobel Peace Prize recipient will arrive in Idaho Feb. 6 and plans to stay four days.

He plans no public events outside the games, she said.

In 2005, Grossman worked with the exiled Tibetan leader’s Sun Valley benefactors to bring him to central Idaho to mark the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

After that visit ended, she followed up with an invitation for him to attend the 2009 winter games, and visited him in February of this year at his residence in northern India, where she described the Special Olympics movement to him.

Some 3,000 athletes from as many as 113 countries are expected at the Idaho games.