I would like to know about Brian Williams of NBC News.
—M.G. L., Ohio
Brian Williams, who replaced Tom Brokaw as the anchor of NBC Nightly News in December 2004, grew up in Elmira, N.Y. (30,940), and Middletown, N.J. Despite his good looks and quick, intellectual wit, he's a regular guy—a NASCAR fan and former New Jersey volunteer firefighter. He's even part owner of a dirt-track stock car team. After attending George Washington University and the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., Williams worked for KOAM in Pittsburg, Kan. (pop. 19,243), before stints at TV stations in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York. He joined NBC in 1994 and has won three Emmys. The father of two children with wife Jane Stoddard Williams, Williams is in awe of the man he succeeded. "The first time I saw Tom Brokaw up close was in the early '80s when I was a young reporter covering the presidential debates," he has written. "It was like a celebrity sighting. I even phoned my parents."
