[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 23545-23546]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      HONORING VIRGINIA GAINES FOX

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ERNIE FLETCHER

                              of kentucky

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, November 22, 2002

  Mr. FLETCHER. Mr. Speaker, It is an honor to rise today to pay 
tribute to a trailblazer, a visionary, a dedicated public servant, and 
a Kentucky original. I speak of the inimitable Virginia Gaines Fox, 
president and CEO of Kentucky Educational Television, who is retiring 
next month after 42 years of service in public broadcasting.
  Virginia Fox--or Ginni, as she is known by her friends and 
colleagues--has created a legacy of innovation, public service and the 
highest standards of excellence. Under her astute leadership, she has 
built KET into an industry leader. Kentucky Educational Television is 
the number one provider of adult education in America, providing 
thousands of broadcast hours of instructional programming to classrooms 
and hundreds of hours of professional development resources to 
Kentucky's K-12 instructors. KET's GED on TV program has helped 11,400 
adults in Kentucky--and literally millions more across the country--to 
earn their high school diploma.
  KET is also leading the way in the industry's digital conversion, 
pioneering datacasting services for Kentucky communities in partnership 
with Federal, State and local agencies--particularly in the area of 
public safety, weather alerts, and homeland security. This initiative 
is serving as a model for similar efforts around the country.
  Virginia Fox has been an innovator in distance learning throughout 
her prestigious career. She was a founding member of the 
congressionally-created Independent Television Service (ITVS) Board and 
created the first national ITV satellite schedule, serving more than 23 
million students annually with distance learning curricula. She also 
founded the Satellite Educational Resources Consortium, the first 
public broadcasting/Department of Education interstate consortium for 
distance learning.
  Virginia Fox's career is highlighted by numerous personal as well as 
professional accomplishments. She broke the glass ceiling by becoming 
the first female CEO of a national organization in public broadcasting. 
She has served on the board of the Public Broadcasting Service and 
chaired the Public Television Outreach Alliance. She received an 
honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Morehead State University, and 
earlier was named Appalachian Woman of the Year by that same 
institution. This year, she was inducted into the Kentucky Journalism 
Hall of Fame and received the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's 
Lifetime Achievement Award.
  A seventh-generation Kentuckian, Virginia Fox proves once again that 
the great Commonwealth of Kentucky has an abundance of human resources. 
It has been my privilege to work with her during my tenure in Congress 
to ensure that America's children will continue to benefit from the 
finest educational programming available, and that they will enter 
formal schooling ``Ready to Learn''. She has demonstrated the power of 
television to educate, inform and inspire.

[[Page 23546]]

  Mr. Speaker, the education of our children is one of our greatest 
responsibilities. Virginia Gaines Fox must be commended for her 
innovation, her vision, and her dedication to education. Her leadership 
will be sorely missed, but her retirement is richly deserved, and we 
wish her the very best that life has to offer.

                          ____________________