Before he was an award-winning journalist, ABC News anchor Byron Pitts was an illiterate child raised by a single mother in east Baltimore.
Now, Pitts has covered three wars, interviewed the last six U.S. presidents and traveled to 58 countries during his 37 years as a journalist.
Pitts spoke to more than 60 people, including student leaders from UF, University of Central Florida, Florida Atlantic University and Santa Fe College, in the UF Reitz Union Rion East Ballroom at 8 p.m. Friday. The event was hosted by Accent Speakers Bureau, GatorNights and the Reitz Programming Board.
Pitts worked as the chief national correspondent at ABC before he became the co-anchor of “Nightline” in 2014. But as a child, Pitts had a poor vocabulary and couldn’t read until he was 12.
After failing his first-year English class, he planned to drop out of Ohio Wesleyan University. A professor saw him crying in the hallway and encouraged him to persevere.
“She not only changed my life,” Pitts said, “She saved my life.”
His freshman-year roommate Peter Holthe taught him a word from the dictionary every day for four years to expand his vocabulary.
“I was just his roommate, but he invested in me and cared enough to help me,” he said. “He really made a difference in my life.”
Pitts opened the floor to questions when a young man in a bright red T-shirt rose from his back row seat and walked toward the stage. He asked Pitts to pray for him.
James Walker, a senator in Santa Fe’s Student Government, asked for the prayer because he has been struggling to pay for school.
Pitts and about 30 students gathered to pray for Walker after the event.
“It meant everything,” Walker, 27, said. “This has been something I have been praying about for a long time.”
Pitts encourages students to consider helping others as a measure of success.
“Everyone has a place in the world to help people they don’t know,” he said.
Byron Pitts, 57, and about 30 people form a circle around Santa Fe College student Walker, 27, and pray.
