LeVar Burton to Receive Fourth Annual Fred Rogers Award

For Immediate Release on February 27, 2004

Excellence in Children's Educational Media Honored

Washington, D.C., February 27, 2004 - LeVar Burton, long-time host of the award-winning PBS KIDS children's literacy series Reading Rainbow, will receive the fourth annual Fred Rogers Award for excellence in children's educational media the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today.

Burton has served as host of Reading Rainbow since its first broadcast season on PBS KIDS in the summer of 1983. As host, and now co-executive producer of Reading Rainbow, he has helped the series become one of the most honored on PBS KIDS, with 18 Emmy awards -- including consecutive awards to Burton in 2001 and 2002 as "Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series."

"Fred was both a friend and mentor to me...I can think of no higher honor than to receive an award which bears his name," said Burton.

Reading Rainbow is among the most watched children's television series in American schools (according to a 2002 national survey conducted by Grunwald Associates.) For millions of elementary school teachers, students and parents, Burton and Reading Rainbow are standard bearers for quality and creativity in children's literacy instruction. Each year, Burton and Reading Rainbow are catalysts for thousands of book-based activities in schools and homes across the country -- through a combination of over-the-air broadcasts and outreach initiatives, off-air recordings by schools, and national sales of videos, learning kits, Web-based content and books.

Reading Rainbow has become a cornerstone of local Ready To Learn services at hundreds of public television stations across the country. Ready To Learn, a cooperative effort of the U.S. Department of Education and PBS, provides educationally rich children's television programs and ancillary materials for use by children, parents and educators. Resources include workshops to teach parents and educators how to extend the educational value of public television programs beyond their broadcast. Today 148 local PBS member stations, with signal coverage serving more than 95 percent of the country, participate in Ready To Learn.

As a literacy advocate, Burton also serves as National Chairman of PBS KIDS Share a Story, a national literacy campaign that inspires adults to help millions of children develop language and literacy skills through storytelling, singing, reading, rhyming, pretending and talking. First Lady Laura Bush serves as the campaign's Honorary National Chairman.

CPB created the Fred Rogers Award in 2001 to honor an individual or organization that, like the legendary Mr. Rogers, has contributed to excellence in children's educational media, and presented the first award to Mr. Rogers himself.

Beloved PBS KIDS personalities, Elmo of Sesame Street and Mr. McFeely, the jovial delivery man from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, will present the award tonight during the PBS Ready To Learn Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

About CPB

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress in 1967, is the steward of the federal government's investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,400 locally-owned and -operated public television and radio stations nationwide, and is the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and program development for public radio, television and related online services.

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