N&O’s Drescher to give J-school commencement address to 300-plus students, 50-plus faculty – and one daughter

John Drescher, executive editor of The (Raleigh) News & Observer, will deliver the spring commencement address to UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media graduates – including his daughter, Dean, the University’s 2011-12 senior class president.

Drescher’s talk, titled “Danger and Opportunity,” keynotes the school’s commencement ceremony in Carmichael Auditorium on Sunday, May 13, at 12:30 p.m.

“With John Drescher as our speaker, the school is hitting the graduation equivalent of hockey’s hat trick,” said Susan King, dean of the school. “He is a news executive with perspective, a Carolina J-school graduate with a sense of our history, and a father with an emotional attachment to the class. John will not only challenge our graduates, but offer everyone in the audience something personal, something to remember.”

“I am thrilled to speak at commencement at my alma mater, especially on the day Dean is graduating,” Drescher said. “Carolina has been so good to both of us. I have great respect for the journalism staff and faculty – some of whom were my professors and some of whom are former colleagues. I can’t wait to be part of this special day."

Drescher, a 1983 Carolina journalism alumnus, was a reporter from 1983 to 1986 at The News & Observer, where he covered state and local government. He then worked for 12 years at The Charlotte Observer as a state capitol reporter and later in several editing jobs, including government editor, metro editor, regional editor and front-page editor.

In 2000, he was named managing editor of The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C. In 2002, he became managing editor of The News & Observer. In 2007, he was named executive editor of The N&O, the seventh person to hold that job since the paper was launched in 1894.

His book, “Triumph of Good Will: How Terry Sanford Beat a Champion of Segregation and Reshaped the South,” was published in 2000 by the University Press of Mississippi.

He and his wife, Deanna, a former teacher in the Wake public schools, have three children – Dean, Anne (a student at Duke University) and Grace (a student at Raleigh’s Broughton High School).

During her time at Carolina, Dean Drescher was a staff writer and an editor at The Daily Tar Heel. She was president of her sorority, Delta Delta Delta, in addition to serving as senior class president. She interned with World Camp in Malawi, Africa, where she taught HIV prevention for five weeks in schools. She also has been a counselor at Camp Kesem, working with 7- and 8-year-old girls who have a parent who has or had cancer. After graduation, she will teach in New Orleans public schools through the Teach for America program.