Gibson ’65 to be Class Day speaker

Journalist Charlie Gibson ’65, former anchor of ABC’s “World News,” will deliver this year’s Class Day address, Class of 2010 president Aditya Panda announced in an e-mail to the senior class Tuesday afternoon. Rebecca Foresman ’10 and Zach Zimmerman ’10 will also address their class after being selected from a pool of 11 finalists.

“Coming from a remarkable alum and dedicated trustee, Gibson’s address will make this one of the most thoroughly ‘Princetonian’ Class Days since the celebrity guest speaker was added to the program in 2001,” Class Day co-chairs Joel Alicea ’10, Henry Barmeier ’10 and Bryan Frist ’10 said in a joint statement to The Daily Princetonian. Gibson has been a member of the University Board of Trustees since 2006.

This year’s announcement comes unusually late — just less than two weeks before the May 31 event. In the last three years, Class Day speakers have been announced between September and February. The latest announcement in recent years came in April 2006, when the graduating class announced President Bill Clinton as its Class Day speaker roughly seven weeks before the event.

Alicea, Barmeier and Frist said they wanted to delay announcing the keynote speaker until decisions regarding the student speakers were complete after final auditions were held Tuesday morning. They added that the high-profile status of Class Day keynote speakers makes the timeline for the selection “unpredictable.”

Neither Panda nor the Class Day co-chairs commented on whether they originally planned to invite Gibson.

Panda also declined to discuss why the announcement occurred so late. He explained that Class Day organizers typically do not comment on the selection process.

“People have naturally been very curious, but they’ve also been very understanding about the effort that the Class Day chairs put into the process,” Panda said in an e-mail.

Foresman said she thought the delay was not a significant source of frustration for her or for many of her classmates.

“I’ve heard people being frustrated in the way that you want to know what your Christmas presents are,” she said. “I guess some people thought the wait was frustrating, but I think it doesn’t really matter anymore now that we know.”

“I’m super pumped,” Zimmerman said about Gibson’s upcoming address.

Foresman is a former columnist for the ‘Prince’ and Zimmerman is a ‘Prince’ staff writer.

He added that though he was a fan of former NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw in childhood, he was excited to hear Gibson talk because of his impressive career and eloquence.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

“He’s a Princeton alum and a former Tower member, so he can’t be all that bad,” Zimmerman joked. Zimmerman and Foresman are both current members of Tower Club.

During his time at the University, Gibson served as news director for radio station WPRB. After deciding on a career in journalism, he rose through the ranks at ABC News, starting at its local Washington, D.C., affiliate. He spent several years as a Washington reporter for the network before becoming a co-host of “Good Morning America,” a position he held from 1987 to 1998 and again from 1999 to 2006. In 2006, he became anchor of “World News,” the most watched evening news broadcast in the United States, and kept that job until retiring in 2009.

During his more than 40 years as a broadcast journalist, Gibson has reported on events including the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, conflicts in the Middle East and Kosovo, and the 2008 presidential election. He has also interviewed many world leaders, including former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, the late Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and South African leader Nelson Mandela.

Foresman and Zimmerman both said that they looked forward to addressing their classmates on Class Day.

“I let out a little squeal — a tiny one — and sort of hugged the friends that I was with,” Zimmerman said of his reaction upon learning Tuesday that he was selected as a Class Day speaker. “In no way was I destined to be valedictorian, salutatorian or the class president, so I’m glad I have this chance to talk to the class in a funny and lighthearted way.”

He jokingly offered a preview of his speech, explaining, “I’m mainly focusing on abortion reform and the acceptance of polygamous relationships in our society. Some mainstream issues we can all agree on.”

Foresman said she was excited to take part in an important event celebrating her class’s time at the University.

“It’s important that people laugh, that there’s a lot of levity. It’s an important day,” Foresman said. “We’re starting our new lives, so it’s important to celebrate our community and really laugh about the ridiculous things that have happened in the past year.”

Panda announced in November that Jeff Bezos ’86, the founder and chief executive of Amazon.com, would speak at the Baccalaureate ceremony on May 30. The Baccalaureate speaker is selected each year by President Shirley Tilghman after consulting with leaders of the senior class.