FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 7, 2001 CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119 DRAKE TO HOLD THREE COMMENCEMENT CEREMONIES More than 900 graduating students will be honored at Drake University's three commencement ceremonies, which will start at 7 p.m. Friday, May 11, with the Law School Commencement Ceremony in the Drake Knapp Center, 2601 Forest Ave. A half hour prior to the ceremony, law professors and graduates in full academic regalia will parade from Opperman Hall to the Drake Knapp Center, where 111 juris doctorate degrees will be awarded to the class of 2001. Attorney and journalist Michael Gartner, now chairman and principal owner of the Iowa Cubs, will give the commencement address. He has written extensively on First Amendment issues and is a member of the bar of New York and of Iowa. His speech will focus on the legal concept of "Attractive Nuisances." Gartner also will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the 120th Drake Undergraduate Commencement Ceremony, which will start at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 12, in the Drake Knapp Center. An honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree will be awarded to Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, founder and director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Ariz. Gartner and Pfeiffer will make brief remarks after receiving their honorary degrees. Also speaking at the undergraduate ceremony will be Drake President David Maxwell as well as Christopher Fennell and Sheila McCoy, both recipients of the Oreon E. Scott Award — the top honor for Drake seniors. Provost Ronald Troyer will be the keynote speaker at the 120th Drake Graduate Commencement Ceremony, which will start at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 12, in the Drake Knapp Center. Approximately 285 graduate degrees will be awarded, including 68 Doctor of Pharmacy degrees. Gartner has been a lifelong journalist. Over the years, he has been page one editor of The Wall Street Journal, editor and president of The Des Moines Register, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, general news executive of Gannett Co. and USA Today, and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for the editorials he wrote for The Tribune of Ames, Iowa, where he then was the editor and co-owner. In 2000, Gartner was named one of the 100 most influential business journalists of the 20th century by the TJFR Group, which provides intelligence on business journalists and business news organizations. He also was named one of the 10 most influential Iowans of the present by The Des Moines Register. In addition, he has been appointed by Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as chairman of Vision Iowa, a state board that oversees grants to Iowa's tourist attractions and will disburse up to $300 million to help Iowa communities build major recreational or cultural facilities. Pfeiffer, the nation's most knowledgeable authority on the architecture and life of Frank Lloyd Wright, is responsible for cataloging and preserving drawings, manuscripts, artifacts, and a wide variety of documents of Frank Lloyd Wright and Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, as well as for providing access to the archives' resources. He is also a prolific editor and writer. Publications on Frank Lloyd Wright bearing Pfeiffer's name include five edited volumes of "Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings;" 12 volumes containing the complete works of Frank Lloyd Wright; as well as eight volumes on a variety of subjects such as masterworks and unbuilt designs. Pfeiffer has been praised by many Wright scholars, including professor Neil Levine of Harvard University, who wrote that "we are all indebted to Bruce Pfeiffer, whose energy, wisdom, care, and professionalism have made the study of Wright a completely different sort of matter from what it was 20 years ago."