Diane Rehm was awarded the 2013 National Humanities Medal Monday. The awards recognize "outstanding achievements in history, cultural studies, filmmaking, cultural commentary, and historic preservation."
Recipients are selected by the President of the United States in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Humanities:
Diane Rehm didn’t go to college. The brainy, eloquent, probing host of one of the best shows on radio, an interviewer of presidents, authors, and experts of many stripes, took a job straight out of high school, working for D.C.’s highway department. The best part was using the department’s two-way radio to send instructions to supervisors on the street. How did she become educated? She got married, for the second time, and became pregnant, quitting a job at the State Department. At home, she learned to do many things: to cook, to play the piano, and, for the first time, “to read and understand what I was reading.” She credits her late husband with being a “superb teacher,” who, no matter what she asked him, “would treat my question as though it was the most interesting question he had ever heard.” >> Read the full profile
Watch the presentation here.