KNOXVILLE — Harry Moskos, retiring editor of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, will deliver the commencement address Aug. 10 at the University of Tennessee’s final summer graduation ceremony.
Moskos, News-Sentinel editor since 1984, will retire Jan. 31, 2002, after 50 years in journalism.
Richard Bayer, UT dean of admissions and records, said UT summer commencement also will be retired after this year.
Future graduation ceremonies will be held only in December and May, Bayer said. A UT graduation committee recommended the change to streamline and dignify university graduation rites, he said.
“Students will receive their degrees at the end of summer, but if they want to attend a ceremony, they’ll be able to choose either fall or spring commencement,” Bayer said.
About 1,620 degrees are to be conferred this summer, and nearly a thousand students are expected to participate in the ceremony, he said.
Moskos, a Chicago native, started working at the Albuquerque Tribune while in high school. He joined the Associated Press as a reporter in 1960, and in 1963 he was named chief of the AP’s Honolulu bureau. At age 26, he was the youngest person ever to head an AP bureau.
While in Hawaii he covered French nuclear testing in the South Pacific and set up the world’s first two-satellite transmission of a news picture.
Moskos served as managing editor of the Albuquerque Tribune and editor of the El Paso Herald-Post before coming to Knoxville, where he has been recognized for his commitment to racial diversity in the media and community.