 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. President Reeves, Mayor Smith, Bob Gray, Senator Carnes, Congresswoman Virginia Smith, honored guests. It is a great honor to join you in welcoming the President of the United States to Hastings College Campus, to the city of Hastings, and once again to the state of Nebraska. The dedication of the Gray Center by President Ronald Reagan is an auspicious moment in the noble history of this college. But there is more to remember here than the honor and excitement of the moment. This dedication ceremony underscores much that is symbolic of the past seven and one-half years of the Reagan presidency. Today, the great communicator dedicates a facility for the study of communication. The great promoter of private initiative object among so many across... In me, and welcoming to the Heartland, this great American who personifies the heart and soul of America, the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Governor Orr. Thank you, Governor Orr, Senator Carnes, Congresswoman Smith, Dr. Reeves, Mr. Mayor, Hal Smith, and thank you, Bob Gray. Bob invited me here, and he certainly is a persuasive fellow. I bet he could even talk Sam Donaldson into attending charm school. But I was happy to be persuaded. It's no secret that I like this area of our country. And though as president, I can't really favor any one football team, I'd just like to say there's no place like Nebraska. But I'm delighted and honored to be here to dedicate the CJ and Marie Gray Center for the Communications Arts. I understand that Marie is nearby today at the Good Samaritan Village, a lover of life at the age of 96. Marie's brother, Bert Birches, is here. He's 92. And so is Marie's sister, Jimmy Walters, who's 82. And you know, one of the reasons I'm saying all this, so wonderful to have some people calling me kid. But another gray, the British poet, Thomas Gray, who died in 1771. I know what you're thinking, but no, I never met him. He wrote beautifully of the small towns of England, whose people lived, as he put it, far from the madding crowd. Along the cool sequestered veil of life, Gray wrote, they kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Well, he was talking about the kinds of people who don't make a lot of noise, whose lives aren't flashy or gaudy, God-loving, God-fearing people who believe in certain fundamental principles, principles like self-reliance, taking care of your own and your community, looking within yourself for strength, and looking to God for your bearings. Those bedrock principles are at work all around this town, this campus, even this very communication center. I'm told that Hastings College operates on a balanced budget, and the gray center itself has, as you've been told by the governor, raised all its funds in the private sector, not looking toward the government for a special leg-up or for free lunch. That kind of self-reliance is inspiring and a model for our society to follow. It's a philosophy I hope the students who come here to learn will carry with them when they leave to ply their skills elsewhere in a profession that at times does not seem to appreciate the simpler virtues. But this center also serves a special purpose as we come to the close of the 20th century. It will truly be a window on the world, an exhilarating and fast-changing world. In our day, we've seen an explosion of communications technology unlike any humanity has ever known. It wasn't all that long ago that a man named Bell brought a new invention, the telephone, to the then President of the United States, and the President looked at it and said it was interesting, but he said, who would ever want to use one? Well, not today. The Chicago Stockbroker pushes a button on her desk and in Hong Kong a million dollars changes hands. A top 40 radio station installs a facsimile machine so that its listeners can send in their requests for their favorite songs on paper and take the astonishing story of two writers living 340 miles apart, Stephen King and Peter Straub, who collaborated on a novel called The Talisman. They hardly ever saw each other while they wrote. Instead, they read and edited and went over every sentence by zapping chapters from one computer to another over telephone lines. Words and sentences and paragraphs were converted into electrical impulses for their journey through the telephone. The phone lines turned the electrical impulses into light pulses and these light pulses were turned into electromagnetic signals which were being 22,000 miles into space to a satellite. The signals were then relayed back to earth, again converted into light pulses, then changed back into electrical impulses to go through another set of phone lines until finally those impulses arrived in the memory of the second computer and thus in seconds words composed in Maine by Stephen King appeared on Peter Straub's computer screen in Connecticut. Breathtaking, isn't it? And it took nothing more at each end than two computers, two modems, and two telephones. That same technology modified some and with more bells and whistles may make it possible for students at Hastings College to be taught French via satellite by a teacher at the Sorbonne in Paris or for a television program made by Hastings students to be sent to the Armed Forces Television Network for our soldiers to watch in South Korea. Maybe you'll throw in a Cornhusker Sooners game or in the years to come this technology will give you the ability to act as town criers around the world for those whose governments substitute propaganda for news. Yes, the communications revolution will allow those who by choice live far from the madding crowd to participate fully in the blessings that lived with the madding crowd living with the madding crowd has traditionally conferred. Blessings such as access to organs of culture and the ability to choose among the wide variety of professional and social options once reserved for city dwellers. The center is already receiving newscasts daily from countries as varied as Israel and Malaysia, giving the good people of Hastings an unrivaled ability at any moment to sample the sounds sights and goings on many thousands of miles away and all of this is merely a prelude to a future in which shopping and jobs and education and culture will come to our doors and into our homes courtesy of the technology that we see here today. Access to these bounties will be possible for the people of Hastings and other towns like it across America without having to sacrifice comfort in the soil and the commitment to home and hearth and community that have made places like Hastings the very heart of that which makes our nation a light under the nations. And now it's my pleasure to be the first person to say Radio Station KFKX is on the air. Thank you Mr. President. We are so very honored to have you on our campus and in our city. Today is a magnificent time in the life of Hastings College. It's a day that culminates years of hard work and dedication on the part of many many people but it is to one family in particular that Hastings College owes its deepest gratitude on this occasion. The Gray Family, Robert Gray and Donald Gray of Washington DC, Dory Gray Sadler of Denver, Colorado, and Gene Gray Miller of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This communication center with its state of the art technology is the result of their commitment to Hastings College. With the flip of a switch or a touch of a button, America's Heartland is connected to the cultural and educational centers of the world. The CJ and Marie Gray Center for the Communication Arts is a gift of immeasurable value, not only for Hastings College but for the city of Hastings and the state of Nebraska. So Bob, Don, Dory, and Gene, we thank you for your generosity and commitment. We promise to be good stewards of your investment and we will always honor your parents Marie Gray and the late CJ Gray for whom this building is named. Now one of the highest honors which any college can bestow upon alumni, friends, or supporters is to confer upon them an honorary degree for distinguished service. Today Hastings College is proud to confer such a degree on the President of the United States of America. At this time I will request that President Reagan join me at the podium and that Dr. Straussheim, Academic Dean of the College and Dr. Hazel Rigg, President of the Foundation, assist in conferring the degree. It is my privilege and personal pleasure Dr. Reeves to present to you for the honorary degree Doctor of Communications, the Honorable Ronald W. Reagan, the President of the United States of America. A native of the Midwest President, Reagan was raised in Northern Illinois. He was graduated from Dixon High School in Dixon, Illinois where he served as Student Body President. A graduate of Eureka College he majored in Economics and Sociology and was active in school drama. By 1933 Ronald Reagan was a full-time staff announcer for WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa. He read Western Union accounts of the Chicago Cubs baseball games from the studio and recreated the games for radio audiences. His experience in radio led him into acting and over the next four years Ronald Reagan appeared in 50 films. During World War II he made training films for the United States Air Corps. After the war Mr. Reagan returned to Hollywood to continue his film career. From 1954 to 1962 he worked for General Electric visiting more than 100 GE plants and addressing more than 200,000 workers on the merits of free enterprise. He also served as host of the television program General Electric Theater. He then turned to politics scoring a decisive victory in 1966 for the governorship of California. He held that distinguished office until 1975. At the 1980 Republican Convention Governor Reagan was nominated unanimously as the candidate for the presidency of the United States. On November 4th 1980 Ronald Wilson Reagan was elected 40th president of the United States. Four years later he again won the office of the presidency in a resounding victory. President Reagan is known justifiably as the great communicator. His lifelong career as a communicator serves as an example for students of today and for leaders of tomorrow. He has eloquently and effectively communicated America's message to leaders around the world and to all Americans. His work as a premier communicator, radio announcer, film and television actor, esteemed governor of the state of California and for the past seven and one-half years president of the United States of America the highest office in the land inspires us today as it will for generations to come. It is for this record of distinguished and dedicated service as a communicator for the American people that I now present to you Dr. Reeves the honorable Ronald W. Reagan president of the United States of America to receive the honorary degree Doctor of Communications from Hastings College. There are no words to express my appreciation and the sense of honor I feel in being having given this degree here at this college which believe me invokes so many memories of my own alma mater in both the physical properties and the beauty of its its campus and I do have to say one thing though with all of my appreciation for this you have compounded a certain sense of guilt that I've nursed for 56 years I always suspected the first degree they gave me there was honorary. Following the benediction please remain in your places while the president departs and for the unveiling of the memorial stone please rise and receive the benediction our father as we leave this event remind us of the rich heritage of freedom that made it possible enable us to rejoice in the leadership of president Ronald Reagan who has made our nation strong and proud once again help us to give thanks for Robert Keith Gray who with his brothers and sisters cared enough to pay tribute to their beloved parents and to bless the students and many others who will come and go in this place for many generations as we face together the challenges of the days ahead help us to remember that those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings like eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint in Christ we pray amen