Newswise — Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of The Washington Post Company Donald E. Graham will deliver the 25th Edward F. Prichard Jr. Lecture at the University of Kentucky. Graham has had an illustrious career with The Washington Post and its parent company. After graduating Harvard University, Graham served the nation in Vietnam. Following a brief career as a member of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, he began at The Washington Post as a reporter in 1971. After several news and business positions at the paper and Newsweek, he was named executive vice president and general manager in 1976. Three years later, Graham became publisher of The Washington Post and served the paper in that capacity through 2000. He became chief executive officer of The Washington Post Company in 1991 and chairman of the board in 1993.
Outside of the news business, Graham has served as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board and as a trustee of the Federal City Council in D.C. He is president of the District of Columbia College Access Program and a member of the board of directors of The Summit Fund of Washington.
Graham is the second member of his family to present the Prichard Lecture. His mother Katherine Graham, who also served The Washington Post as a publisher, presented the 15th Prichard Lecture in 1993. Katherine and her husband Phil were close personal friends of Prichard. Katherine considered her friend Prich "the most impressive man of our generation, the one who dazzled us the most."
The Prichard Lecture is funded through an endowment established by the Prichard family. Edward F. Prichard Jr. was a brilliant Kentucky lawyer with a national reputation, who in his final years led the movement for educational reform in Kentucky. Since its inception in 1977, lectures presented have included nationally and regionally acclaimed authors, historians and public figures including James McGregor Burns, Michael Dirda, David Eisenhower, Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Massie, David McCullough, Marsha Norman and Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
The lecture is an annual event of the UK Library Associates and is co-sponsored this year by the UK Libraries' Wendell H. Ford Public Policy Research Center. Graham will present his lecture March 25.
The UK Library Associates was organized in 1954 to support the work of the libraries and includes more than 1,200 friends, alumni, faculty and students who make annual contributions. As the major research library in the Commonwealth, UK Libraries provides comprehensive access to information essential to teaching, research and service at UK.
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