Brinker at this year's Red Cross Ball

Palm Beach philanthropist Nancy Brinker, a former ambassador and White House Chief of Protocol, was named one of 16 recipients of this country’s highest civilian honor, The Medal of Freedom.

Brinker, 62, receives the award for her work as founder of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s largest grass root group dedicated to raising money for breast cancer research.

The organization has raised $1.3 billion for the cause since 1982, according to a White House press release.

“I’m speechless,” Brinker told Page2Live. “I’ve been trying to digest this for the last few days, but it’s without a doubt the biggest honor. But I don’t think it’s just for me. It’s for all my wonderful colleagues at Susan G. Komen.”

The non-profit is named after Brinker’s sister, and the award comes on the 30th anniversary of her death.

“I pray to God that it doesn’t take another 30 years to find a cure,” Brinker said.

She was about to walk out of her Palm Beach home last week when the call from the White House came in.

“I thought it was a joke,” Brinker said. “I hung up and called them back because I thought it wasn’t real.”

President Barack Obama will present the medals in a ceremony in Washington, D.C., Aug. 12.

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“These outstanding men and women represent an incredible diversity of backgrounds,” Obama said. “Their tremendous accomplishments span fields from science to sports, from fine arts to foreign affairs.  Yet they share one overarching trait: Each has been an agent of change.  Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way.

“Their relentless devotion to breaking down barriers and lifting up their fellow citizens sets a standard to which we all should strive.”

Brinker’s in sterling company. In addition to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy and the recently deceased U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp, recipients include: physicist Stephen Hawking; former tennis champ Billie Jean King; Harvey Milk, the assassinated gay activist whose portrayal in last year’s Milk won Sean Penn an Oscar; actors Sidney Poitier and Chita Rivera; Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland; South African activist Desmond Tutu; Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, an economist who’s trying to reform the Third World’s economies; Florida International University professor Pedro Greer, whose non-profit in Miami feeds 10,000 homeless people a year; U.S. civil rights leader Joseph Lowery; Joe Medicine Crow, an American Indian writer; and Janet Davison Rowley, a cancer researcher.

“I’m not sure I’m worthy to be in such company,” she said. “It’s very humbling.”

Ironically, staunch Republican Brinker is being honored by a Democratic president.

She’s also famous for having been one of the most prolific fundraisers for former President George W. Bush. And then she was named U.S. Ambassador to Hungary. She was Chief of Protocol in the last two years of the Bush administration.

“I think it’s a testimony to the work that Susan G. Komen does,” Brinker said. “We’re a non-partisan organization and we don’t care whether a victim is a Republican or Democrat or whether a victim has money or not.”