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Carrie Blewitt (703) 744-7816

Former News Anchor Tom Brokaw Honored by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans
South Dakota High School Scholars Also Recognized during 60th Anniversary Celebration

Washington, DC – (February 27, 2007) – The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans announced that Thomas “Tom” J. Brokaw, former anchor and managing editor of the NBC Nightly News, will be presented with the Horatio Alger Award, and inducted as a lifetime member of the Association at its 60th anniversary celebration in Washington, D.C. in April.

The Association is equally proud to announce that a student scholar from South Dakota will join Brokaw in Washington this spring and will be honored as a Horatio Alger National Scholar. Horatio Alger scholarship recipients are students who have excelled in education and have overcome adversity. This year’s scholarship recipient from South Dakota is Bobbi A. Greenfield from Vermillion.

The 60th Annual Horatio Alger Awards events will take place in Washington, D.C. on April 12-14, 2007 to honor and induct the Horatio Alger Award recipients. During the events, the Horatio Alger Award winners will meet with 105 high school seniors from around the nation who were selected to receive Horatio Alger National Scholarships, each valued at $20,000. The total amount of college scholarships awarded is more than $12 million annually – an Association milestone.

The events provide an opportunity for some of the nation’s most impressive and determined young people to learn firsthand about the philosophies and experiences that helped the 2007 Horatio Alger Award recipients surmount significant obstacles to achieve successful lives.

The other new members being inducted in April are Craig R. Barrett, chairman of the board for Intel Corporation; Jenny and Sid Craig, co-founders of Jenny Craig International; Craig Hall, chairman and founder of Hall Financial Group; Clarence Otis, Jr., chairman and CEO of Darden Restaurants; Richard M. Rosenberg, chairman and CEO of Bank of America (retired); David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group; Howard Schultz, chairman of Starbucks Coffee Company; Roger T. Staubach, former Dallas Cowboy and chairman and CEO of The Staubach Company; and Chris Thomas Sullivan, founder and chairman of OSI Restaurant Partners, Inc.

In preparation for the spring awards, Brokaw recently had a few words of advice for the high school recipients of the Horatio Alger Scholarship. He said: “If you want to have a successful life, you’ve got to get your boots on the ground and get your hands in the dirt and spend nights in scary places, because that’s where most of the world lives. I came up that way, and I think it’s helped me as a journalist and I think it’s helped me not just as a citizen of this country, but as a citizen of mankind.”

Brokaw said his upbringing helped to instill in him a humility that served him well as a journalist. He was born in Webster, South Dakota, as one of three boys whose father worked in construction. During high school, he started working for KYNT radio in Yankton, South Dakota, where he attended high school. After graduating from the University of South Dakota, he accepted a job with KMTV, the NBC affiliate in Omaha, Nebraska.

In 1966, NBC News sent Brokaw to California as a reporter. While there, he covered Robert Kennedy’s assassination and Ronald Reagan’s gubernatorial campaign. He remained with NBC, working as the network’s White House correspondent, the anchor of Today on NBC, co-anchor of the NBC Nightly News and, last, sole anchor of the NBC Nightly News. Coverage highlights include the first one-on-one interview with Mikhail Gorbachev, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the first interview with the Dalai Lama.

Brokaw is also an accomplished author, having penned the best-selling “The Greatest Generation” as well as “The Greatest Generation Speaks” and “An Album of Memories.”

Brokaw has been awarded two Emmys, an Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award and a Peabody Award, among countless other accolades. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy Hall of Fame.

About The Horatio Alger Association
Founded in 1947, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans continues to fulfill its mission of honoring the achievements of outstanding individuals in our society who have succeeded in spite of adversity and of encouraging young people to pursue their dreams through higher education. Among the Association’s 300 members are well-known Americans including the noted poet Maya Angelou, author and broadcaster Lou Dobbs, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and television personality Oprah Winfrey.

The Horatio Alger Association offers three annual scholarship programs: the National Scholarship Program for high school seniors, various state scholarship programs and the Horatio Alger Military Veterans Scholarship Program for U.S. veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. Award winners receive financial aid counseling and internship placement assistance.

For more information about the scholarships or to find out more about the 2007 Washington events, please call (703) 684-9444 or visit www.horatioalger.org.

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