Alumni Achievement Award Citation
 -- by George Eaton, president, Knox College Alumni Association, Feb 13, 2003 (Photo: John Podesta, accepting award on behalf of Barry Bearak, with George Eaton)

Last spring, Barry Bearak, Knox Class of 1971, won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.  He was awarded the prize, in the words of the Pulitzer Committee, "for his deeply affecting and illuminating coverage of daily life in war-torn Afghanistan."  Pulitzers are given in recognition of specific work—but, behind that work, what is really being recognized are talents, habits of mind and character that have been honed over twenty-five years at the journalist's craft. 

A more detailed look at the Pulitzer citation can help us see this.  First, "deeply affecting."  Reading any of his stories shows that Bearak cares deeply for the people he is writing about, that he has a keen eye for detail, and that he is a skilled wordsmith who can bring people and situations to striking and poignant life.  These unusual abilities go far to explaining Bearak's fifteen nominations for the Pulitzer Prize -- two by the Miami Herald, where he worked from 1976 to 1982; an additional ten by the Los Angeles Times over the 14 years he worked as a roving national correspondent for that newspaper; and three by the New York Times since he went to them in 1996.

The Pulitzer Committee also called his work "illuminating."  Not only does Bearak make you care about his subjects, he helps you understand.  A recent profile of Scott Ritter in the Times Magazine, where Bearak is now a staff writer, gets under the skin of a colorful personality, at the same time that it lifts a veil on the complex interplay of diplomacy, politics and espionage that have marked the UN arms inspections in Iraq. 

This same combination of human sympathy and analytical insight characterizes stories filed throughout his career -- from the 1980s, on the Mariel boatlifts; the 1990s, on the deadly connection between heroin abuse and AIDS, for which he won two national awards; to the new century, where his stories filed as the Times South Asia Bureau Chief (a position shared with his wife, Celia Dugger) have spanned eight nations, from Bangladesh to Afghanistan.

Finally, the Pulitzer Committee notes that his stories are about "daily life."  Bearak's perennial subject is ordinary people, and his stories are a collective testament to their unending struggles —- for dignity, for meaning, and for life itself.  Whether it be a story about New York's Fort Washington Homeless Shelter, for which he won a Sigma Delta Chi award in 1991; or a story about the Association of Dead People, an organization representing Indian citizens falsely declared dead, which the South Asian Journalists Association named the Outstanding Story of 2001; or finally a story about the terrible human cost of famine and war in Afghanistan, part of the series the Pulitzer Committee honored last spring--over 25 years, Bearak's enduring subject has been the worth of individual human beings, and he has told their story well.

Remarks by Barry Bearak
-- Read by John Podesta, Feb. 13, 2003

Dear friends of Knox, dear friends of mine,

As I write this, I am in Malawi, half a world away from you.  my 7-year-old son is under the impression that I'm here because I've always wanted to visit a nation that rhymes with wowie zowie.  Actually, I'm here reporting a story for The New York Times Magazine about the hunger crisis that has beset southern Africa.  I had hoped I could finish this assignment in time to join you.  I came close but didn't succeed.

I am immensely honored and grateful to be a recipient of an Alumni Achievement Award.  I deeply regret my absence from this occasion, and I am sure I will regret it all the more as the years go by.  the problem with missing one of your life's most memorable moments is that it makes them awfully difficult to remember. I'll just have to imagine I was present, much as I sometimes had to imagine I had awakened in time to attend my 8 o'clock classes.

Last fall, I came back to Galesburg to attend the convocation ceremony, visiting for the first time in 31 years. As I discovered then, a return to campus has the effect of convening a conversation with your 20-year-old self -- and I had much to tell that young man.  Some things were merely confirmations of the expected:  rock 'n' roll still stirred my soul, the Cubs still hadn't won the pennant and John Podesta was still smarter than most everyone else.

Other items were some very glad tidings. I was able to assure the younger me that life was going to work out pretty well -- that there was love ahead with a great wife and two great sons, that a challenging career awaited that would accommodate a desire for self-expression and a passion for social justice, that the world would reveal itself in far-away places like Afghanistan, El Salvador and Malawi. More to the point, I could say with assurance that the years spent at Knox -- even including those 8,387 hours spent playing cards -- were terrific preparation for what lay ahead.

Knox is a wonderful, inspiring, nurturing place. It left an indelible imprint on my mind and spirit.  These many years later, it is hard to apportion the debts of gratitude I owe.  My best friends at Knox remain among my very best friends today.  If the food were better, we probably could be convinced to move back into the dorm.

Besides great friends, I had great teachers.  They were educators of gentle wisdom and provocative wit.  Some have joined the list of Knox's great legends:  Sam Moon, Phil Haring, Hermann Muelder, Robin Metz and Bob Kooser. Many of their words echo in my head.  "most everyone in Congress is a crook," professor Haring told us with a smile as he lit yet another cigarette. That bold and unpatriotic statement outraged me when I was a freshman.  Unfortunately, it miffs me no more.

My Knox years were my coming-of-age. when I first enrolled in 1967, I was in many ways a virgin, a young man not only new to the joys of sex but to the burdens of doing my own laundry.  I learned how to sort out complicated romantic yearnings at the same time I learned how to separate the colored fabrics from the whites.

When I was at Knox, I first read "Catch-22," I first heard the Beatles "White Album," I first wore bell bottom pants, I first grew enough hair to drive my parents nuts, I first played hearts, spades, poker, euchre, jick-jack, bridge, double solitaire, crazy eights, casino and spit. I first ate that greasy, ghastly pizza delivered from Marty's, I first went to sleep at the break of dawn and woke up at the crack of noon, I first thought a president of the United States was a complete jerk.

So much of those years remain with me -- and not only the part about presidents. I think I'm still trying to digest the pizza.

Thank you, Knox. Thanks for four of the best years of my life. Thanks for considering me an alumnus worthy of note. Thanks, as Bob Hope would say, for the memories.  I only wish I were there remembering with you.