Dan Rather to swear in Club President Lisa Matthews at inaugural gala, Jan. 30

Lisa Nicole Matthews will be inaugurated as the 114th president of the National Press Club tomorrow, Saturday, Jan. 30, in a virtual gala at 4:30 p.m..

Legendary CBS news anchor Dan Rather will officially swear in Matthews from a remote location.

Tickets cost $20 for Club members and $25 for the general public and are now on sale online. All proceeds will go to the National Press Club's Help The Heroes Initiative, which provides meals for front-line health care workers at Howard University Hospital. All tickets, sponsorships and donations are tax deductible.

Matthews tweeted that "Growing up, I wanted to BE @DanRather. Can hardly believe he will swear me in as 114th president of @PressClubDC on January 30, 2021. A M A Z I N G."

The NPC culinary team will be preparing an NPC inauguration meal kit with some authentically Virginia cuisine, to honor the state where Matthews was raised and where she currently resides. You can pre-order separately from the NPC Online Store, and begin to look forward to a meal that you would have experienced in the Club Ballroom, had things not gotten sideways with the COVID-19 social distancing requirements. One kit serves two.

Think: Grilled Virginia ham wrapped shrimp, cheese biscuits, Chesapeake crab cake, Virginia bison, a salad, apple tarts and other delicious foods. (This is not included in the price of the gala ticket.) There is curbside pickup on Jan. 29. Orders for delivery on Jan. 29 may be placed starting Jan. 25, but not before.

Matthews, assignment manager of U.S. Video for the Associated Press, was elected on Dec. 4 and took office at the Club's General Membership Meeting on Jan. 22. 

Over the course of her long career in journalism, Matthews has received two Edward R. Murrow Awards – one in 2002 for outstanding coverage of the events on September 11, 2001, and her second in 2010 for Video Continuing Coverage of the Economy. She also received the AP's Oliver S. Gramling Spirit Award for service to clients in 2004.

Born on Andrews Air Force Base and raised in the DMV, Matthews is a graduate of James Madison University where she received her bachelor's degree in 1990.

Matthews will be the third person of color to serve as Club president, following Sheila Cherry in 2004 and Jeff Ballou in 2017. She will head the Club's first all-female leadership team, which includes Vice President Jen Judson (Defense News), Membership Secretary Emily Wilkins (Bloomberg Government), Secretary Gillian Rich (Investor’s Business Daily), and Treasurer Eileen O’Reilly (Axios). 

“Throughout my term, I will encourage this wonderful institution toward a year of progress,” Matthews said after taking the gavel on Jan. 22. “We will focus on and celebrate diversity, equity and inclusion and educating the public about how and why you and I as journalists and communicators do what we do. This is not something that I do alone. This is something we will do together, and we will have fun and we will make progress.”