October 08, 2008

Contact:   Stacey Schmeidel

DAVIDSON, NC -- Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.) will speak at Davidson College on Thursday, Oct. 9 at 3:30 p.m. on behalf of presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.

The talk will take place in the Lilly Family Gallery and is open to the public at no charge.

Burr's talk is sponsored by the Young Republicans. The event will take place just one day before North Carolina's Oct. 10 voter registration deadline. Voters from any party affiliation will be able to register at the Davidson College event. Earlier this fall, Davidson's Young Democrats and College Republicans announced a bipartisan drive designed to get 100 percent of Davidson's 1,700 students registered to vote.

Sen. Richard Burr

Susan Roberts, an associate professor of political science at Davidson, said visits like this are an important part of helping students convert their political awareness into action at the ballot box. "Students enroll at Davidson with an awareness of political issues and a history of service to their communities," she said, "and once they're at Davidson they continue that civic activism. For our students, this presidential election has fueled a sense of public spiritedness and translated it into a real passion for politics."

Roberts noted that at Davidson, "you can hear political conversations in every hallway and in every corner of the Student Union. Even better," she added, "the visit by Sen. Burr is student-generated."

Roberts noted that this year's election is likely to draw a higher number of young voters to the polls than usual. "I would venture to say that Davidson is perhaps a microcosm of registration and mobilization efforts by young voters across the country," she said. "It won't just be partisanship that inspires our students to vote-it will be information and energy."

Sen. Richard Burr
Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994, Richard Burr has focused on health care, government accountability, job growth, public schools, veterans, and the men and women of the U.S. military.

In the Senate, Burr serves as ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. He also sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee; the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; the Energy and Natural Resources Committee; and the Indian Affairs Committee.

The son of a minister, Burr and his family moved to Winston-Salem, N.C., when he was a young child. After graduating from Wake Forest University, he began his career by working for 17 years in business with Carswell Distributing, a wholesale commercial products company.

Burr currently serves as a Board Member of Brenner Children's Hospital.

Burr and his wife, Brooke, have two sons.

Davidson College
Davidson College is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,700 students located 20 minutes north of Charlotte in Davidson, N.C. Since its establishment in 1837 by Presbyterians, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Through The Davidson Trust, the college became the first liberal arts institution in the nation to replace loans with grants in all financial aid packages, giving all students the opportunity to graduate debt-free. Davidson competes in NCAA athletics at the Division I level, and a longstanding Honor Code is central to student life at the college.
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Posted By: Bill Giduz