Greenwich, March 20, 2006 – By the time she was 13, Jeanne Robertson had already reached her 6’2” stature. Perhaps it was an indication of a future career that would soar to great heights. On Tuesday evening, April 4 at Norwalk City Hall, Robertson, one of the funniest, busiest and most successful professional speakers in America, will deliver a presentation on the art of crafting and delivering a keynote speech. The National Speakers Association Connecticut Chapter is sponsoring the meeting.
 
Robertson’s speaking career began when she was named Miss North Carolina and competed in the Miss America Pageant. Although she lost, she was named Miss Congeniality. As a result, she was asked to travel her native state for one year speaking at pageants and addressing civic clubs and corporations. When that ended, she found that people were willing to pay her to come and address their groups and conventions. She focused her efforts on becoming a full-time professional speaker and humorist and her rise to the top was nothing short of phenomenal.
 
As a member of the National Speakers Association, Robertson has served as the national president of the organization and was the first woman to be presented with “The Cavett,” the most prestigious honor in professional speaking. She has also been awarded every other top honor and designation including induction into the Speakers Hall of Fame, an honor she shares with such luminaries as Art Linkletter, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and President Ronald Reagan. She has also been awarded the Toastmasters Golden Gavel also held by Walter Cronkite, Tom Peters and Dr. Ken Blanchard.
 
More recently, Robertson was named 2001 North Carolinian of the Year by the North Carolina Press Association and 2003 Woman of Achievement by the Miss North Carolina organization. In 2005, Southern Lady Magazine named her Southern Lady of the Year. She is also the author of several books on humor including the bestselling “Don’t Let the Funny Stuff Get Away.”
 
The title of Robertson’s presentation is “It Works for Me: How One Humorist Puts Together a Keynote.” During the presentation, she will show audience members what works and what doesn’t when delivering a speech by using examples from her own work.
 
The presentation is open to the public. For more information and to register, please go to www.nsact.org.
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Ruth Sherman
Ruth Sherman Associates, LLC
341 Sound Beach Avenue, Ste. B
Old Greenwich, CT 06870

By Kathleen Johnston

    Former Miss America contestant Jeanne Robertson ‘67 is a tall drink of water, but it’s laughs she’ll fill your belly with.

    As a speaker and humorist, the North Carolinian employs G-rated comedy grounded in stories about her Southern heritage,.  She wants audience to chuckle - then she wants them to think.

    Building on speaking experience gained on the pageant circuit, Robertson teaches people to understand the importance of a sense of humor - something she distinguishes from being funny.

    Making people laugh requires comedic talent.  Have a sense of humor, Robertson explains, is “a choice about the way you live your life.”

    At age 13 and a height of 6-foot-2 inches, Robertson realize her height st her apart from her friends.

    One Halloween, the other kids told Robertson they didn’t want an “adult” with them.  So, with her mother’s help, she threw on some sheets and grabbed two sacks, posing as a trick-or-treater atop another’s shoulders and doubling her candy opportunities.

    Thanks to similar stories and years of speaking about them, Robertson now towers at the top of her profession, having earned every major award in the motivational speaking field – many as the first woman recipient.  But she’s as practical as she is funny.

    “The truth is I got in it early,” she drawls, crediting her four decades of experience.

    At an age many would consider time for retirement (“I lie in bed at night, and I hear myself wrinkling”), Robertson is venturing into satellite radio and other new media to hawk her brand of humor.  She still spends 23 days a month traveling, outlining her self-practiced steps to developing  sense of humor, such as learning to laugh at yourself and taking “humor breaks.” 

Auburn Magazine, Winter 2006

Alamance Magazine

Southern Lady of the Year award

North Carolina's funniest woman is now officially one of the South's most celebrated ladies. Southern Lady magazine, the only magazine published exclusively for southern women, presented humorous speaker Jeanne Robertson with its "Southern lady of the Year" award recently. Robertson, a Burlington resident, is an Auburn University graduate. She served as Miss North Carolina in 1963 and was named Miss Congeniality in the Miss America Pageant.  For more than 42 years, she has spoken to thousands of audiences throughout the United States, entertaining them with her down-home stories while emphasizing the importance of humor.  The first woman to be presented "The Cavett," the most prestigious honor in professional speaking, she has also been awarded "The Golden Gavel" by toastmasters International, "2001 North Carolinian of the Year" by the North Carolina Press Association and “2003 Woman of Achievement” by the Miss NC organization.  Past president of the National Speakers Association, she has authored numerous books on humor.  The Southern Lady of the Year award recognizes Southern women who exemplify the charm, poise and hospitality for which Southern ladies are renowned, and are successful role models and mentors who positively impact their community.

Jeanne Robertson, professional speaker and author, can be reached through
www.JeanneRobertson.com.
 

Carl Hurley and Jeanne Robertson – two of America’s favorite motorcoach entertainers – are headed your way with a l2-city tour in 2009 called “Carl Hurley’s Comedy Coach Express.”

The show features new comedy from Carl and Jeanne and music from baritone Jim Rittenhouse – together providing first-class entertainment designed and performed exclusively for senior adults! Among the things that make them a perfect match is that both performers specialize in clean, uplifting humor. They share the philosophy that audiences are for entertaining, not embarrassing.

Says Carl, “You’ll feel better when you leave than you did when you came in – and you will say that was a ride to remember. The Comedy Coach Express is loaded with rib-tickling, knee-slapping laughs and feed-sack philosophy.

“I don’t want to get too serious here, but we must never take for granted the freedom we have to come together and laugh at ourselves and to laugh with those around us. It’s one of the freedoms that makes America so great, and that’s what the Comedy Coach Express is all about.”

The tour begins March 3, 2009, in Lakeland, Florida, and ends December 9 in Louisville, Kentucky. In between are shows in Bessemer, Alabama; Rome, Georgia; Anderson, Indiana; Bryan, Texas; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Columbia, Missouri; Dubuque, Iowa; Canton, Ohio, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. All shows are at 2 p.m., except for dinner shows in Louisville.

For no-deposit reservations and more information, contact Sue Monarch-Fox at 1-800-955-4746, or email sue@mckinneyspeakers.com Additional information also is at www.carlhurley.com. Signups receive promotional comedy packets to help generate interest in the shows.

Additional background bio information about Carl and Jeanne…

Carl Hurley and Jeanne Robertson – “the two go together like sausage and grits, sunshine and flowers, George and Gracie”

He’s 5’6” standing on tiptoe. She’s 6’2” with her hair “mashed down.” He grew up swapping homespun stories in the hills of Eastern Kentucky. She’s a former Miss North Carolina who finds comic inspiration in everyday events.

He’s rotund and jolly, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, a sublime sense of the ridiculous and an ever-ready punch line. She’s willowy and elegant, with a flair for weaving a tapestry of humor as colorful and lovingly constructed as a country quilt.

He’s Carl Hurley. She’s Jeanne Robertson. The two go together like sausage and grits, sunshine and flowers, George and Gracie.

Among the things that make them a perfect match is that both performers specialize in clean, uplifting humor. They share the philosophy that audiences are for entertaining, not embarrassing.

CARL, drawing from his roots in the tradition of such other American humorists as Andy Griffith and Garrison Keillor, delights audiences with his reflections on life as viewed by a native of Appalachia with a singular sense of the absurd. Carl’s unique comedy style, coupled with a background in higher education, has earned him the title “America’s funniest professor.”

Those who don’t believe that beauty and comedy go together should reconsider. Think Lucille Ball. Think JEANNE Robertson. Named Miss Congeniality in the Miss America Pageant of 1963, Jeanne has since been awarded every top honor in the speaking profession, including the Toastmasters Internationals 1998 Golden Gavel Award. In 2005, Jeanne was named Southern Lady of the Year” by Southern Lady Magazine.

Both Carl and Jeanne have a series of comedy recordings that have become popular with senior adults traveling on motor coaches across America.