Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Jeffrey Blount, an author and veteran director of NBC news programs ranging from “Meet the Press” to “The Today Show,” will speak at Isothermal Community College to kick off Black History Month.

The event will be on Monday, February 3, at 10:00 a.m. at The Foundation Performing Arts and Conference Center. It is free and open to the public.

In addition to Isothermal students and employees, high school seniors from traditional and charter schools in Rutherford and Polk counties will attend.

Blount is the award-winning author of two novels — Almost Snow White, winner of the 2013 USA Best Book Awards, and Hating Heidi Foster, winner of the 2013 Readers Favorite Book Award for young adult literature.

Blount is an Emmy award-winning television director and a 2016 inductee to the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame. During a 34-year career at NBC News, he directed Meet The Press, The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, The Chris Matthews Show and major special events.

Blount is an accomplished public speaker, commenting on issues of race, social justice and writing. 

He is also an award-winning documentary scriptwriter for films and interactives that are now on display in the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, America I AM: The African American Imprint at the National Constitution Center, The Museum at Bethel Woods, at the site of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Fair, and others. 

 

Submitted by Mike Gavin