Oklahoma locals (who swear they don’t love Katie Couric) have pointed out that I need to correct and clarify my earlier post on Katie’s big-bucks commencement speech in Norman. The Norman Transcript reports that the Washington Post figure of $110,000 was too small: she made $115,000 for the speech. And she donated it to charity:
OU President David Boren announced that Couric donated her entire speaking fee, $115,000 from private funds, to cancer research at her alma mater, the University of Virginia. The donation was made in honor of Couric's sister, Emily, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2001 and was a former state senator.
That's a happy ending, but it still seems like an enormous fee for a brief speech, even if it does help the UVA Cancer Center. Apparently, this is only a small part of Couric's capital campaign, according to a Charlottesville magazine:
In December 2005, Katie Couric announced that she has become the national spokesperson for a fundraising campaign to help construct a new cancer center on the U.Va. Medical Center campus. She is hoping to raise $100 million from the entertainment industry, university graduates and other interested donors.
