WHAT: NJN and the Bank of America, a national sponsor of Ken Burns’ THE WAR documentary series, will host a luncheon to recognize the contributions made by New Jersey WWII veterans and their families, who sacrificed so much to protect this country in its time of need.

WHO: The luncheon will feature keynote speakers Lynn Novick and Sam Hynes, a WWII Marine Corps pilot featured in the film. Their bios are below. Reporters will also have the opportunity to interview local veterans.

WHEN: Monday, October 1, 2007, at 12:30 pm

WHERE: The War Memorial, West Lafayette Street, Trenton, NJ

MEDIA: The media is invited to attend the luncheon and keynote address. Lynn Novick and Sam Hynes are available for interviews and photo opps before the event at noon, and after the lunch until 2:30 PM. Please contact Trina Pryor above if you plan to attend or if you would like NJN to arrange for a phone interview. Press credentials required. Please note: the event is not open to the public.

Ken Burns’ THE WAR – Background
This seven-part documentary series, directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the history and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women caught up in the greatest cataclysm in human history. Viewers will travel with the individuals from four American towns through their own personal and often harrowing journeys into war, painting vivid portraits of how the war dramatically altered their lives and those of their neighbors as well as the country they helped to save for generations to come. THE WAR will air on NJN on seven consecutive Thursday evenings beginning Thursday, October 4, at 8 pm. Please visit www.njn.net for more information.

Tell Us Your Story
There are many untold stories about World War II. One of Ken Burns’s primary motivations for producing THE WAR was to capture the memories of the World War II generation who fought on the battlefront or felt the impact on the home front. NJN invites the public to share their stories. Please visit our web site and submit your story or read the stories of others. http://www.njn.net/television/specials/war/sharestories.html

BIOS
Lynn Novick is co-director/producer (with Ken Burns) of THE WAR. Novick began her long collaboration with Ken Burns in l989. She first served as associate producer for post production on the landmark The Civil War series, then spent four and a half years as producer (along with Burns) of the nine-part, 18½-hour series, Baseball, the most-watched series in the history of public television, and for which she won an Emmy Award. Following Baseball, Novick co-directed and co-produced (with Burns) a two-part biographical documentary film, Frank Lloyd Wright, which was shown at the Sundance, Telluride, Edinburgh and Seattle Film Festivals and then broadcast on PBS in fall l998; Novick and Burns won a Peabody Award for the film. Novick also produced (with Burns) the highly acclaimed 10-part series, Jazz, which explores in detail the culture, politics and dreams that gave birth to jazz music and follows this most American of art forms from its origins in blues and ragtime through swing, bebop and fusion. Jazz premiered on PBS in January 2001 and was nominated for five Emmy Awards.

Novick was born in London in 1962 and grew up in New York City. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale in l983, with honors in American Studies. After several years as a research assistant at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, Novick began her career in documentary filmmaking as a production assistant at Thirteen/WNET New York. She then served as researcher and associate producer for Bill Moyers on two major PBS series: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth and A World of Ideas with Bill Moyers. She lives in New York City with her husband, Robert Smith, and their two children.

Sam Hynes was born in Chicago on August 29, 1924, and grew up in Minneapolis. He graduated from high school at sixteen, enrolled at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 1942, and at once signed up for the Navy flight program. He was called up in March 1943, and began pilot training in Denton, Texas. A year later he was commissioned as a Marine Second Lieutenant at Pensacola. Soon after, he met Liz Igleheart, the sister of a friend and fellow pilot; they were married in July 1944. Hynes spent the fall of 1944 in California, training in TBMs, and in January of 1945 shipped out to the Pacific, where he joined Marine Torpedo Bombing Squadron 232 at Ulithi Atoll, in the Western Carolines. In April the squadron moved north to Okinawa, where he flew over a hundred missions, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war Hynes finished college, got a PhD in English, and became a teacher and critic of British literature. His memoir of his wartime experiences, Flights of Passage: Recollections of a World War II Aviator, was first published in 1988.

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