Former Secretary Of State Albright Headlines Cleveland Event reports PinsYourWay.com
(prHWY.com) November 10, 2012 - San Francisco, CA -- San Francisco, CA- Thus far, it has been a pretty good year for former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 75. She has won the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for contributions to international peace and democracy.
Within the last few weeks, the diplomat was honored by Washington, DC's Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz and at the awards ceremony accompanied on drums a jazz trumpeter's rendition of a Puccini aria. And, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports, she also knocked them dead as the keynoter at the Cuyahoga Community College's annual scholarship fundraiser lunch.
Albright, the senior-ranking member of the Clinton Cabinet from 1997 until 2001, was the third ex-Secretary of State to have addressed the college's Presidential Scholarship Luncheon, which this year raised $1.1 million. Other keynoters in the 20 years Cuyahoga Community College has put on the event include former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and TV's Oprah Winfrey.
Albright told her audience of the importance of helping deserving students, particularly at community colleges which provide training needed to find a career or retrain for a new career. She called education a "sacred cause," and voiced her view that "any student willing to do the work should not be denied that opportunity."
She also recalled fleeing her native Czechoslovakia with her family when it was occupied by Nazis, receiving a doctorate-level education in the US before working at foreign policy think tanks and becoming US representative to the United Nations. Still teaching diplomacy at Georgetown University, Albright has remained active in politics and has campaigned for President Obama. She has also authored five books; the most recent is a memoir of her family's history.
In her remarks, Albright urged citizens to renew their faith in themselves and their system of government, saying the "government is us and we have a duty to participate in the democratic process."
The audience of 1,100 laughed and cheered when Albright recalled her drumming stint at the Monk Institute awards and reported she had picked up a new nickname, "Sticks," because of that appearance. The CCC event organizers saluted her musical chops by presenting her with a pair of personalized drumsticks.
A well-known fancier of lapel pins, Albright also received a "tree of life" pin by Lakewood, Ohio jeweler and designer Russell Trusso. It joins her personal collection of over 200 pins. The most publicized pin in the collection is likely one depicting a snake and an apple. She made a point of wearing it after Saddam Hussein's press corps reviled her as "an unparalleled serpent."
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