'TODAY' show host Hoda Kotb to speak at Lubbock Women's Club
Tickets will go on sale in January.
Hoda Kotb, co-host of NBC's "TODAY" and a 14-year correspondent for "Dateline NBC," is headed to the Hub City.
The award-winning journalist is scheduled to speak at 6:30 p.m. March 27 at the Lubbock Women's Club, 2020 Broadway, as part of the club's Ernestine Payne Welborn Endowment Community Speaker Series.
Tickets will go on sale in January, according to Ainsley Nelson with the Lubbock Women's Club.
Kotb graduated from Virginia Tech University with a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism before starting her TV career as a news assistant for CBS News in Cairo, Egypt. She went on to work in New Orleans, Louisiana; Fort Myers, Florida; Moline, Illinois; and Greenville, Mississippi, before joining NBC News.
She is a New York Times best-selling author for her books "Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer and Kathie Lee" and "Ten Years Later: Six People Who Faced Adversity and Transformed Their Lives."
Her awards include the 2008 Gracie Award for Individual Achievement, the 2008 Alfred I. duPont - Columbia University award, the 2006 Peabody award for her "Dateline NBC" report "The Education of Ms. Groves." She also won the 2004 Headliner Award, the 2003 Gracie Award, the 2002 Edward R. Murrow Award. She has been nominated for four Emmy awards, and in 2010, "TODAY" won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Morning Program.
Kotb is a seven-year breast cancer survivor. After being diagnosed in March 2007, she shared her story on "TODAY" in October of that year and has since been involved in several initiatives to raise awareness of the disease.
"We are thrilled to welcome Hoda to Lubbock," said Judy Rostad, president of the Lubbock Women's Club, in a news release. "Many of us enjoy our morning coffee while watching the 'TODAY' show. I've shared many laughs with friends and look forward to the inspiring stories she will share with us."
Other notable names brought in through the community speaker series have included Zach Thomas, Miami Dolphins football player and former Texas Tech All-American; former first daughter Laura Bush Hager; Joan Lunden; Capt. Chesley Sullenberger; Heloise; former first lady Barbara Bush; former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; and Osama bin Laden's former sister-in-law, Carmen bin Laden.