Roger Mudd, legendary journalist and documentary host and correspondent for The History Channel and former Darlington faculty member, will visit the School and give a talk on Wednesday, March 10 at 9 a.m., in the Van Es Arena of the Huffman Memorial Athletic Center. The presentation is open to the general public as well as Darlington students, parents, faculty, and alumni.
Mudd’s presentation will be followed by a student panel discussion with opportunities for questions and answers from the audience. Mudd will also meet with students and faculty from English II-H, AP US History, and Publications Practicum classes during fifth and sixth period lunches.
The Class of 1953, led by Mike Luxenberg ’53 as class agent, is bringing Mudd to campus as the first speaker in its Class of 1953 Lectureship, established in April 2003 to commemorate the class’ fiftieth reunion. “ We wanted to contribute something to the School that would broaden and enhance students’ education,” Luxemberg said about his class’ decision to raise money to endow the lectureship. “There was no question about who the first speaker would be, because Roger Mudd is very well known nationally and either taught or coached almost everyone in the Class of 1953 at one point.”
Mudd started his career as a member of the Darlington faculty from 1951-52, teaching English and History and coaching JV football. In 1961, he joined CBS. After 19 years as a congressional and national affairs correspondent with CBS News, he moved to NBC News in 1980. There, he served as chief Washington correspondent; chief political correspondent; and co-anchor of the NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press, American Almanac, and 1986. Mudd covered every national political convention from 1960 to 1990, as well as each national election. In addition, he was an essayist and correspondent for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour from 1987 to 1992.
He won the George Foster Peabody award for “The Selling of the Pentagon” in 1970 and for “Teddy” in 1979 and the Barone Award for Distinguished Washington Reporting in 1990. Between 1992 and 1996, he was a visiting professor of politics and the press at Princeton University and at Washington & Lee University. Mudd was also the editor of Great Minds of History, interviews with five American historians published in 1999 by John Wiley & Sons.
He graduated from Washington & Lee University in 1950 and from the University of North Carolina in 1951 with a master’s degree in history. Prior to college, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1945 and served with the 2nd Armored Division.
Mudd is on the board of the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges and the National Portrait Gallery and the advisory board to Eudora Welty Foundation, the Jepson School of Leadership at the University of Richmond and is currently the chair of the advisory board to the Mount Vernon Ladies Association.
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1928, Mudd is married to the former E.J. Spears of Richmond, Va. They have four children and 11 grandchildren, and have lived in McLean, Va., for 32 years.
