VERO BEACH– The Emerson Center is pleased to announce the 2011 Celebrated Speakers Series and to welcome their new presenting sponsor, Wilmington Trust. The lineup of speakers for 2011 has been expanded from four to five speakers to provide more diversity and excitement for the Vero Beach audiences.
Appearing on January 15, 2011 will be Peggy Noonan, Author and political columnist. Noonan was a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan from 1984 to 1986. In 1988, she was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H. W. Bush when he ran for the presidency. Before entering the Reagan White House, Noonan was a producer at CBS News in New York. In 2008, The National Journal dubbed Noonan’s political column indispensable to an understanding of the presidential year, and Forbes magazine called her column “principled, perceptive, persuasive, and patriotic.”
Patrick Jake (P.J.) O’Rourke, America’s premier political satirist follows on February 5, 2011. With more than a million words of trenchant journalism under his byline and more citations in The Penguin Dictionary of Humorous Quotations than any other living writer, Patrick Jake (P.J.) O’Rourke has established himself as America’s premier political satirist. He is the best-selling author of ten books and both Time and The Wall Street Journal have called him “the funniest writer in America” and his unique spin on current events has earned him a reputation as a modern-day Will Rogers. His razor sharp insights never fail to inform and entertain.
Author and a former national security advisor to the President of the United States, Zbigniew Brzezinski, will appear on February 26, 2011. Brzezinski’s resume is lengthy and impressive with the most outstanding notoriety of holding the post as National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. In 1981, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and today is Trustee and Counselor, Center for Strategic & International Studies; and Robert E. Osgood Professor of American Foreign Policy, the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC.
Gwen Ifill, the moderator and managing editor for Washington Week, speaks on March 19, 2011. Ifill, also senior correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, interviews newsmakers and reports on issues ranging from foreign affairs to politics. She is also frequently asked to moderate debates in national elections and appears as an occasional roundtable panelist on Meet the Press. Concluding the 2011 series on April 9, 2011, is Paul Krugman, one of the world’s foremost economists. Krugman, Professor of Economics at Princeton University, is one of the world’s preeminent economists, having won the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics. An insightful, outspoken Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times, he is a passionate and articulate speaker, with a gift for relating global economic events to his audiences, and committed to speaking the truth as he sees it in the most compelling terms. His twice-weekly Op-Ed pieces for the Times model the depth of insight and the unflinchingly outspoken style he brings to his speeches.
Series ticket buyers have the option of subscribing to only four of the speakers (the first four or the last four only) for $220 or for all five speakers, the cost is $275. Seats are available at either the 4 pm or 7 pm performances. Call the Emerson Center box office at 772-778-5249 for reservations.
