I recently came across this press release about Walter Cronkite receiving an award at the annual banquet of the Radio Club of America. It goes to show that anyone can be involved in ham radio and maybe this will offer some incentive for readers to leave some comments and get involved with my giveaway promotion, not just to be like Walter Cronkite, but because by being a ham radio operator, you may end up talking to him via the radio at some time in the future.

The Armstrong Medal is bestowed by the Board of Directors upon any person within its membership who shall have made in the opinion of the Board of Directors and within the spirit of the club, an important contribution to the Radio Art and Science.

At the Radio Club of America’s Nov. 16, 2007 banquet, Walter Cronkite will receive the Club’s foremost achievement award, the Armstrong Medal.

This very special medal is not awarded every year, but only after careful study, by the board, of the candidate proposed by the awards committee.

Cronkite is best known as the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” program from 1962 to 1981.

Among his other interests, Cronkite is a radio amateur. He said that although amateur radio has been around for 100 years, it is not out of date. “Many of you know I’m a sailor. I really enjoy being on the sea, with the wind at my back, under way, under sail. What most of you don’t know is that I’m a radio ham, too. My call is KB2GSD. And you can bet that when I’m on the ocean, even if the GPS, the radar and the ship-to-shore fail, I’ve still got my ham radio station. It really is the best back-up communications system in the world,” he said.

Cronkite was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1916. He first worked in radio as an announcer for WKY in Oklahoma City. He later worked as a sports announcer for KCMO in Kansas City, Missouri. While in Kansas City in 1937, he went to work for United Press International (UPI). The news agency sent him to cover World War II, and he distinguished himself as a reporter in North Africa and Europe.

In 1950, Edward R. Murrow recruited him to work at CBS News. He anchored the network’s coverage of national political party conventions beginning in 1952, and from 1953 to 1957, he hosted the CBS program, “You Are There.”

On April 16, 1962, he succeeded Douglas Edwards as the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” and continued in that role until March 6, 1981. After leaving the evening news broadcast, Cronkite was seen and heard occasionally as a special correspondent for CBS, CNN and NPR. From 1987 to 1992, Cronkite filled his last role for CBS News: “Walter Cronkite’s 20th Century,” a 90-second radio segment for CBS Radio. A production company he cofounded in 1993, the Cronkite Ward Company, produced documentaries for the Discovery Channel, PBS and other networks. In 2004, he wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column that appeared in 186 newspapers.

For many years, Cronkite hosted the annual Vienna New Year’s Concert on PBS and the Kennedy Center Honors.

Cronkite is the recipient of a Peabody Award, the William White Award for Journalistic Merit, an Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the George Polk Journalism Award, and a Gold Medal from the International Radio and Television Society. His autobiography, “A Reporter’s Life,” was published in 1996.