Brokaw Will Be Class Day Speaker

Tom Brokaw, anchor and managing editor of the NBC Nightly News, will be the Class Day speaker at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, June 5, in Tercentenary Theatre.

"The Senior Class is thrilled to welcome Mr. Tom Brokaw as the keynote speaker at our Class Day ceremony," said Harvard First Marshal Peter S. Cahn '96.

More lighthearted and casual than the Commencement ceremony that follows on June 6, Class Day is a time for graduating students to celebrate and recognize their Class's achievements with their friends and family.

"Tom Brokaw's speech will add immeasurably to that special day," Cahn said. "We are delighted that he will join us on Class Day, following in the tradition of past Class Day speakers like Hank Aaron, Walter Cronkite, and Mother Teresa."

Sole anchor of the Nightly News since 1983, Brokaw celebrates his 30th anniversary with NBC today, May 2. "The staff at NBC News assures me that Tom is in a particularly nostalgic mood, often telling anecdotes around the office," said Cahn.

"His experience reporting current events and his comments on the current state of affairs will welcome our graduating class to the 'real world' that awaits. As he looks back on 30 years in journalism and contemplates his future, so too does the Class of '96 remember its four years at Harvard and Radcliffe and anticipate the successes to come."

On Class Day, the Senior Class Committee will also present the Ames Awards to the male and female class members who are the unsung heroes of the Class of '96. Three students will deliver the Harvard, Radcliffe, and Ivy orations, reflecting on their undergraduate years. Also, class choristers will sing the Class Ode, a humorously rewritten rendition of Fair Harvard.