Where he started but where delighted. Its a real honor and a privilege to have such scholarship not only inhouse pessoa actively and selflessly involved. Six years ago when we had the opportunity to involve them in the Academic Program here who would have thought that this gracious and on the soul that we see as an alum would bring that personality to the scholarship we wanted him to be apart of. This is a gentleman who has an opportunity every turn to be applauded for excellence on so many levels and yet robert caro is an alum to her students, he is a classmate and he is a class act. This year we have a wonderful opportunity to see something we have never seen before and barry will talk about a repeat with the paper in this years awardee. We also have the opportunity to rip surprise bop with our greatest honor on the academics and one of our favorite academics. We named the history class that he taught and robert a. Caro history class and what an honor does for all of us to have his name alongside of ours forever. If i may or would like to invite barry up to the table. There he worked with bob to give us this wonderful work which has quickly become our most respected academic award and an award we are quite proud of. Bob to you and to your wife and family welcome back. Barry thank you. Come on up. [applause] c i would like to echo toms greetings to all of you and thank all of you for attending this robert caro prize event. Every year gets a little bit bigger. Last year we had an ap reporter and this year we have cspan. Next year Lin Manuel Miranda is writing the dash for the event so no telling what is going to be in a future here. Unfortunately it wont be eligible to write a third prizewinning tape but well see. 70 years ago when i first approached bob and asked if the History History of department established a word whose name i couldnt think of a better way of celebrating a remarkable career and every conceivable awards including the National Humanity award bestowed by president obama. Speaking of power i encourage all of you to list bobs most recent book on power released in audible as month and im guessing the navy dont know to exist but its an amazing memoir. Its bob and his earliest days of working with horace mann writing his Lyndon Johnson books. I hope they have a hardcover book sometime in the future. Recently the director Carnegie Hall told me when he arrived in new york city 12 years ago from london he knew nothing about the city. I was told i had to read one book he said and the next day to give the best possible introduction of standing new york the powerbroker appeared on his desk and then as if a miracle clyde was invited to a dinner party where he ended up sitting next to bob and soon clyde bob and i became friends and clyde told me this is a friendship that he cherishes. In fact if you look at the brochure of the 2017 18 Carnegie Hall this season you will see picture of bob illustrating the announcement of the new series on the 60s in the years that changed america inspired by pulitzer prizewinning author and journalist robert a. Caro. Bob once mentioned to me that the prize that meant the most to him was the award by the society of american historians for a book that exemplifies the union of the historian and the artists artist which is why bob and i agreed the robert caro prize to be awarded to a Research Paper that blends literary excellence to the writing of history. Happily the creation of the robert caro prizes increase the number of semester and fullyear research essays. Students report how much they enjoy working on their papers. They feel a sense of ownership about it. They have given us insight into how the news york times covers the holocaust and the devastating impact of the 1918 influenza epidemic in the 2005 prizewinning student is here today with us. Last years winner explored the mysteries of the cuban missile crisis. She and two at a time so much that this year she would have the prizewinning paper this one on American Relations in the 1970s. A notice last year that when the prize price was first established i couldnt imagine how much it would mean to bob but i knew it would mean the world to students in the History Department. I couldnt imagine every possible accolade would value our small token of appreciation to working closely with baba made me realize how much this award means not only to the winners and to us but to him. Also became abundantly clear last year when the paris review published an interview with bob and the very first page he said the robert caro prize was the nicest thing that has happened to him. I know you are grateful that bob is joining us this afternoon and as tom noted earlier i now have the pleasure of teaching in the robert a. Caro class of 53 history classroom. Dr. Kelly in an email to me said they are naming the class because bob scholarly work performed partly for the work he continues to do with todays students. It will be an honor for my colleague to teach there. So now let me welcome bob but id also like to welcome one of my history colleagues David Berenson who is a faculty adviser to the school newspaper, the record, for a special presentation. [applause] is the current adviser there were actually four of us in the History Department who have served as advisers to the paper. We came across a copy of the record in which you were named the 1952, 1953 record editorinchief and i would just like to read it from the article about it. What the robert a. Caro 53 has been chosen as the newspaper from the 1952 53 school year. Horace mann and robert caro has been for their outstanding work on this other publications one the finest writers in the class bob had several stories printed and manuscript in addition he is a member of the dash and on the back the Editorial Board went on to say its not without a great deal of thought in naming robert caro editorinchief of the record. Here we have selected an outstanding journalist and his admiral equipped to handle the job. We are confident that bob along with associate editor Robert Ackerman will produce a highquality paper next year. [applause] i also found two of your, from their Editorial Board. One is from september 29 at the student edited. It has a cartoon by ed koren of the new yorker at the bottom and a debate over who is the best man or eisenhower and the other one Adlai Stevenson choice for president. These are two of your works so anyway thank you. [applause] thank you. That makes today really nice. The picture of the three editors under that headline including the editor of the yearbook. So nice to have some of my classmates here today. I wanted to take a minute, this is a really happy day for me. Every so often i got an award and i would say to me why dont you act happy . I would say i will act happy if you want me to but it always feels like its happening to someone else so im never really excited about it. Giving this award does make me happy and im going to take a minute or two to tell you why. When horace mann approached me six years ago and asked, said they would like to name an award in my honor i said that would be really great if they gave the award for something i believe dan. Mary asked me what i really wanted and i said you know all my life have been trying to make people understand, trying to make other writers understand that the quality of the writing, the quality of the prose is just as important and nonfiction as it isnt fiction. He read so many history books and it seems like the only thing that mattered to them, seemed like the only things that matter to the writer was to get all the facts and. It doesnt seem to be an understanding that things that matter in fiction sense of place, the rhythm of the words, the arrangement of the paragraphs, that those things really matter and nonfiction to because they are part of the story and history is the story. If you want people to understand the story you have to give them the setting. You have the show them what the room was light but ill take one minute to give an example of what im talking to you about. Also from the setting if you do the setting right, if you pick it right you can let the reader understand something about the character and his reaction to that setting without having to give him a lecture and stop the reader, stop the reader cold in its tracks. For example Lyndon Johnson comes to washington as the secretary to congressman. He is 22 years old. He is 34. He can only carry a cardboard suitcase and he doesnt have a winter overcoat. He is going to work and i had to find the woman who worked in the office with her when she was in her 20s and named ms. Delcarmen. Here was the scene. She told me about this scene she would see every morning. The Capitol Building is here, the library of congress is here. Lyndon johnson lives in a little hotel down at the bottom of capitol hill near union station. Estelle lives in a boarding house over here so she they are both from texas so they get up very early in the morning. She is walking toward the capital in this direction and she would always see the same thing. Lyndon johnson would come up the hill from a little hotel. He would always be walking and then suddenly when he was in front of the capitol he would break into a run and run the length of the capital to the Office Building which was on the other side. So she said first i thought it was because he didnt have a top coat and he was cold but then spring came and it was warm and he still ran. I thought im trying to show something about things about Lyndon Johnson. I didnt quite know what at the time but what was the reason he was running from the capital every morning . So i would go and sit there trying to find a reason time after time, day after day and i never saw anything in particular except this long white front of the capitol. It just seemed like no one way to the capital. Something occurred to me. Id never gone to sit there and look at it at the same time Lyndon Johnson passed which was early in the morning 5 30 or 6 00. I started to do that on all of a sudden there was something really different because the sun comes up. This is facing the east part of the capital or it faces the east front. The sun comes up in the east so the sun is at its strongest nsa came up if illuminated this whole front of the capitol with the heroic figures in them and the row of columns. If illuminated it as if it was a bright light stage setting. You suddenly said yes Lyndon Johnson is coming from a land where the buildings are mostly what they called dog runs to room log cabins. All of a sudden hes in front of this thing which is so magnificent from this blazing light the white marble lit up that somehow it touched him. He might not have even thought about it but it touched him and showed him what he could achieve 56 seated in the setting. So i wrote it that way. I always felt i didnt have to tell people so much about Lyndon Johnsons ambition, that they could see it in this one scene. Thats something that i believed then, that i have always believed in so the idea that horace mann would establish an award that would help people in some way inculcated some students an understanding of this is the kind of thing you ought to try to be doing that you ought to show a setting of the room of the treaty signed that they are debating and thats really important. So this is really every year a really terrific day for me. The second reason that this day is really special for me is because of the paper that im giving the award to. If it happens as mary said the award has been given to a person two years in a row. Last years paper was really good. Then the summer i started getting a couple of emails from sarah. She said her papers are on sinoAmerican Relations from the nixon era almost to the present day. She said im over in beijing interviewing diplomats because thats what robert caro would do it sort of made me cry. Then she says ive recall sarah he would not give interviews but he wouldnt stop asking him because thats what robert caro would do. That was really i must say touching to me. But it was also something that not many human beings would do to have that perseverance to go over there and get those interviews. It really made me think a lot of you. Of course the paper also has to be wellwritten. Its for literary excellence and the writer of history. So when barry said that the paper was really wellwritten i had to wait and see was a wellwritten, and it is. Its remarkable piece of work. Its a very complicated story and she tells a lot about nixon and opening relations to china. Although its complicated work you never have to wonder whats happening because its all very clear. I understand how very hard it is to do Something Like that. So sarah its a real pleasure to award you the second prize, second year in a row for literary excellence and the writing of history. Come on up. [applause] c thank you. [applause] hi everyone. Im sarah. I wanted to start off by saying how honored i am to be here with all of you today. I remember when i met mr. Cairo last year. I told him that i wanted to study the history of sinoAmerican Relations in the 1970s and that i was going to visit china to do some research. The plan that i had that ben was really hazy. I knew that i was going to visit shanghai and visit beijing, check out a couple of resources at different universities but that was about it. What really struck me was mr. Cairos reaction produced incredibly encouraging and he encouraged me to pursue whatever topic i was interested in. Afterward, mr. Cairo inspired me to actually contact and interviewed different american and chinese diplomats and professors. I can honestly say my perspective on the topic has been fundamentally changed by all the distractions ive had it with those diplomats. I also remember mr. Cairo saying one of the reasons he studies political power is that political power from 40, 50 or 60 years ago impacts all of our lives today. I will always remember that because i think that is one of the reasons why people study history and why history is so important today. Of course i would like to thank mr. Cairo because he is truly an inspiration and he is really inspired me and all of my time at horace mann and id like to thank my mentor. It would not have been possible without him. Id like to thank everyone else at sub by my teachers, especially my history teacher dr. Kelly and all the other teachers at sub light than everyone else who has made this event possible. I probably left out a lot of people so i hope thats okay. Of course id also like to thank my parents because they have been through the whole process with me today helped me practice for all the interviews that i tried to conduct with different people and they have supported me through everything so thank you. [applause] c thank you sarah, thank you bob, thank you barry and thank you for all who have come out to make this a special and joyful occasion. Sarah to you and your family we wish you well. We are going to miss you. We hope you come back they help you visit, mom and dad to our school and to the caros extended families a treat to have you here anytime that we would love to have you back when we are having tea in the room or just enjoying a stroll on campus we know we can enzi evidence of each and every one of you looming large during your time here so thank you for honoring us with your presence. The administration the high school thank you for giving us this opportunity to enjoy the afternoon everyone. [applause] [inaudible conversations]