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Saturday, July 18, 2009

O Arizona: We Gots Cronkiteabilia!

Alex Dalenberg writes:

Walter Cronkite didn't just lend his name to the journalism school at Arizona State University. He let the dean raid his desk.

An entire wall filled with memorabilia from the iconic news anchor's career is on display in a gallery at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in downtown Phoenix.

The collection is the centerpiece of the Marguerite and Jack Clifford Gallery, a journalism museum on the second floor of the Cronkite School, 555 N. Central Ave.

With Cronkite central to the school's identity, Dean Christopher Callahan asked the longtime CBS news anchor if the school might have some souvenirs for the gallery. To Callahan's delight, Cronkite invited the dean to take his pick from the newsman's personal collection last summer.

"Walter told Dean Callahan, 'Come out to New York and take whatever you want.' So, Chris had a very fun day," said Kristin Gilger, an assistant dean at the Cronkite School.

The Cronkite wall contains a little bit of everything: books from the anchor's personal collection, historic newspapers the anchor socked away and a few of his trademark pipes.

"WALTER CRONKITE" is even written in bold marker on a few weathered copies of books from his personal library.

The museum is also filled with other artifacts from journalism's past: an Associated Press teletype machine, camera equipment that was operated by broadcast pioneers and a microphone used by Edward R. Murrow to broadcast radio reports from Europe in the late 1930s.

link: Cronkite let ASU dean raid closet for trove of memorabilia


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