Bob Dylan honoured by Obama

Bob Dylan awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

President Barack Obama has awarded Bob Dylan with the highest US civilian honour - the Presidential Medal of Freedom

But Dylan was in no rush and left the president waiting as he took his time getting down from the stage to receive his award:

The President paid tribute to Dylan saying the 'modern troubadour' had a profound affect on him when he first heard his music while at university:

Other winners of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 are:

  • Madeleine Albright - the first female Secretary of State

  • John Doar - former assistant attorney general involved in civil rights cases in 1960s

  • Dr William Foege - former director of Centers for Disease control who led efforts to eradicate small pox

  • John Glenn - the first American to orbit the earth

  • Gordon Hirabayashi - opposed the internment orders for Japanese Americans during WWII when he was a student in the 1940s. he died in January

  • Jan Karski - Polish Underground officer was among the first to relate accounts of the Holocaust to the world. He died in 2000

  • Dolores Huerta - a community organiser

  • Juliette Gordon Low - founded the Girls Scouts in 1912. She died in 1927

  • Toni Morrison - Pulitzer Prize wining author, she was the first African-American woman to win a Nobel prize

  • John Paul Stevens - former Supreme Court Justice

  • Pat Summit - former University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach and the all-time leader among NCAA basketball coaches

  • Shimon Peres - former president of Israel