JCU: NBC's Tim Russert gets memorial tribute

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS -- John Carroll University has honored former NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert, a 1972 JCU graduate, who died last June 13 at the age of 58.

The JCU Department of Communication and Theater Arts will be renamed for him. A semester-long fellowship at NBC's "Meet the Press" will also be offered to one JCU student each year in his memory.

Russert, a Buffalo native who would have turned 59 this coming Thursday, had been the host of "Meet the Press" since 1991 and was recording that week's show when he died of a heart attack.

And Russert had already established a scholarship specifically for a student from western New York before he died.

The first recipient is Katherine Warner, of East Amherst, N.Y., who will attend JCU next year on the $1,300 scholarship.

About 250 friends and JCU classmates learned of the tribute Saturday as they came together for a Mass and dinner here in his memory.