The Women’s Board of Wolfson Children’s Hospital has announced that longtime journalist Tom Brokaw, baseball executive Theo Epstein and former diplomat Caroline Kennedy will serve as the featured speakers for the 2017-2018 Florida Forum Speaker Series at the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts.
The series, which raises funds to provide health care for children, kicks off Nov. 8 with Brokaw, who is best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He was one of the "Big Three" news anchors in the U.S. during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s and is the author of “The Greatest Generation,” one of the most popular nonfiction books of the 20th century, as well as five other books.
Brokaw has won every major award in the journalism industry, including Peabody, duPont and Emmy awards, and lifetime achievement recognition. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded Brokaw with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He now serves as a special correspondent for NBC News and works on documentaries for other outlets.
The series continues Jan. 16, 2018, with Theo Epstein, a baseball executive with the Chicago Cubs. Epstein became the youngest general manager in the history of Major League Baseball, when the Boston Red Sox hired him at the age of 28 in 2002. In 2004, the Red Sox won their first World Series championship in 86 years and won another championship in 2007. On 2011, he resigned from his job in Boston to become president of baseball operations for the Chicago Cubs, who won their first World Series championship in 108 years in 2016.
The series concludes March 5, 2018, with Caroline Kennedy, an author, attorney, and diplomat who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017. She is also a prominent member of the Kennedy family and the only surviving child of President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.
Kennedy is an editor of nine New York Times best-selling books on constitutional law, American history, politics and poetry. Kennedy is honorary president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and a member of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award Committee. A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Law School, she is also honorary chair of the Senior Advisory Committee of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University,
Since 1992, the Florida Forum has hosted renowned speakers from around the world, offering profound insights and discussion on a broad range of issues. The series is presented by Wells Fargo, Florida Blue and Landstar and will contribute funds for program and clinical equipment needs as part of a five-year, $4 million pledge supporting the Pediatric Surgery Center of Distinction.
For more information, go to The Women’s Board website at https://womensboardwolfsonchildrenshospital.com.
