St. Joseph, Mo. — Political commentator Cokie Roberts will be the featured speaker at the 23rd R. Dan Boulware Convocation on Critical Issues at Missouri Western State University this fall. The Convocation at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13 in the M.O. Looney Complex Arena is free and open to the public.

“With a very important presidential election coming up Nov. 1, we are fortunate to have one of the country’s leading political commentators to reflect on it,” said Dr. Robert Vartabedian, Missouri Western’s president. “I am particularly looking forward to her insights on what is shaping up to be the most unusual presidential race of my lifetime.”

In addition to the Convocation, Roberts will be the guest of honor at the annual Convocation Luncheon at noon Sept. 13 in the Fulkerson Center. Ticket and sponsorship information for the luncheon will be announced at a later date.

Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News and NPR. From 1996 to 2002, she and Sam Donaldson (who was the Convocation speaker in 2007) co-anchored the weekly interview program “This Week.” In her more than 40 years of broadcasting, she has won countless awards, including three Emmys. She has been inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame, and was cited by the American Women in Radio and Television as one of the fifty greatest women in the history of broadcasting.

In addition to her appearances on the airwaves, Roberts and her husband, Steve Roberts, write a weekly column syndicated in newspapers around the country by United Media. They are also contributing editors to USA Weekend Magazine, and together they wrote “From this Day Forward,” an account of their more than forty-year marriage and other marriages in American history. The book immediately went onto The New York Times Bestseller list, following Cokie Roberts’ number one bestseller, “We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters,” an account of women’s roles and relationships throughout American history. Her earlier books, “Founding Mothers” and “Ladies of Liberty” (published in 2004 and 2008 respectively), also became instant bestsellers.

Cokie Roberts holds more than twenty honorary degrees, serves on the boards of several non-profit institutions, and on the President’s Commission on Service and Civic Participation. In 2008, the Library of Congress named her a “Living Legend,” one of the very few Americans to have attained that honor.