The Overby Forum is part of Welty Weekend at The W, Oct. 16-18. Held in honor of beloved alumna Eudora Welty, the weekend also will include the 15th annual Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium that will open on the evening of Thursday, Oct. 16 in Poindexter Auditorium, a release party for the alumni-sponsored cookbook “Southern Grace, Recipes and Remembrances from The W” on Friday, Oct. 17 from 4-6 p.m. in the President’s Home and the Book and Author Dinner on Oct. 17, 7 p.m., at Trotter Convention Center.

A veteran editor and reporter who spent 24 years covering foreign affairs, national politics, Congress and government agencies in Washington, Bennett currently serves as director/international exhibits at the Newseum. She previously was director/Asian and European programs and director/communications for the Freedom Forum.

She came to the Freedom Forum in 1999 from USA Today where she was editor and writer on the national newspaper’s editorial page, specializing in aviation safety and foreign affairs.

Bennett previously was a national correspondent for Knight-Ridder newspapers where she covered Congress, presidential politics and the State Department from 1987 to 1994. As a diplomatic correspondent, she accompanied Secretaries of State James Baker and Warren Christopher to more than 70 countries, writing about arms control, the collapse of communism, the Persian Gulf War and the Middle East for this chain of 30 U.S. newspapers and 200 wire clients.

She also worked as Washington correspondent for the Philadelphia Daily News from 1981 to 1987.

A graduate of Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Ala., she began her journalism career with UPI in 1975. She was later named state editor for Virginia and bureau chief in Memphis for UPI.

Her awards include the Olive Branch award from New York University for “outstanding coverage of international security,” and she was cited by Philadelphia Magazine as “Best Washington Correspondent.”

She and her husband live in Annandale, Va.

The Andrea Godwin Overby Forum is funded by the Andrea Godwin Overby Journalism Excellence Fund, which was established in 1993 with a gift from Charles Overby, chairman and CEO of The Freedom Forum. Overby’s gift in honor of his wife, Andrea, a 1968 MUW graduate and journalist, on the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary, was matched by The Freedom Forum.

The Freedom Forum is a nonpartisan, international foundation dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people. Its mission is to help the public and the news media understand one another better through educational programs, conferences, seminars, broadcasts and publications.