National Correspondent for CBS News Byron Pitts has been selected to be the keynote speaker for North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University's Spring 2009 Commencement.

The commencement will be held Saturday, May 9, 8:30 a.m. at the Greensboro Coliseum. This year, the university will be graduating more than 1,000 students. The event is free and open to the public.

Pitts will bring to the audience his years of experience as a broadcast journalist and travel abroad. He has covered some of the nation's biggest stories and was an embedded correspondent covering the war in Iraq where he was recognized for reporting under fire within minutes of the fall of the Saddam Hussein's statue.

Pitts was also CBS's lead correspondent at the Ground Zero, September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. His reporting earned him an Emmy for individual reporting.

He has covered the war in Afghanistan, Kuwait, the Florida Presidential recount, and the Elian Gonzalez story among other national headline stories.
Before joining CBS News in 1998, Pitts was a correspondent for CBS Newspath; CBS affiliate WSB-TV in Atlanta, Ga.; WCBV-TV in Boston, Mass.; WFLA-TV in Tampa, Fla.; WESH-TV in Orlando, Fla.; WAVY-TV, Virginia; and WNCT-TV in Greenville, N.C.

He is the recipient of several national and regional awards including an Emmy for his coverage of the Chicago train wreck of 1999, several Associated Press Awards and a National Association of Black Journalists Award.

He is a native of Baltimore, Md. and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in journalism and speech communication. He currently lives with his wife in Upper Montclair, N.J.