Name: Catherine Barkes

Instructor: Dr. Young - COMM 1100: Public Speaking

Tribute Speech - Fred Roger

Introduction

How many of you watched television as a kid? Can you think of a show that really stuck

with you after all this time? Well for me it was Mr. Rogers's Neighbor. A show about loving your

neighbor and yourself.

I will be paying tribute to Fred Rogers, someone who greatly impacted my childhood as well as

many others.

Mr. Rogers's Neighborhood wasn’t being produced anymore by the time I was born, and

sadly he had passed away as well, but I didn’t know this as a kid. He was a huge part of my life

spending the morning with me, singing with puppets, and teaching me how to treat my neighbor.

Now as an adult I have been able to learn about his passion for music, which I share, and how he

was such a big part of modern television.

Today I will talk about 3 things I think are most admirable about Mr. Rogers. His passion for

helping children, his influence on television, and how he continues to help people even now.

Transition: For my first main point,

I. First main point: His passion for helping children,

The main focus in his show was to help children mentally and emotionally, while other

shows were talking about math and science, Mr. Rogers was talking about managing feelings.

Showing kids how to love, with his puppets and his songs. He had a degree in music composition
and he wrote his own songs for the show knowing that sometimes the best way to reach people

was through music. He wanted to make sure that kids were learning to be ok with themselves and

to learn empathy and kindness. When Morgan Neville, the producer of a documentary on Rogers,

was watching clips of the show he says he thought, ‘Where’s this voice in our culture today?

Where’s this voice advocating for civility and empathy and these kinds of things which are so

rare.’ (Leith 2018, P.5) This is something I really admire about Rogers, he valued a future

generation that grew up learning kindness and empathy.

Transition: Secondly, how he influenced television,

II. Second main point: Influence on Television

On May 1, 1969, Mr. Rogers gave maybe one of his most important speeches, asking that

funding for public broadcasting not be cut in half. With the Vietnam war raging at the time,

President Nixon had proposed that they cut funding for Public Television to support the war

effort.

Rogers famously said, ‘This is what I give. I give an expression of care every day to each child,

to help him realize that he is unique… I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear

that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental

health.” (Stratchen, 2017, P. 4) He quite literally saved public broadcasting, without him, we

never would have gotten the television programs we grew up with.

Transition: Lastly,

III. Third main point: How he continues to help people,

Sadly Mr. Rogers passed away in 2003, only 2 years after his last episode of Mr. Rogers
Neighborhood, and only one year after he won the Presidential Medal of Freedom. One thing I

love about Mr. Rogers is that he wanted to continue helping children even after the show

stopped. When they filmed the last episode of the show, they made it like any other, so that he

would never have to say goodbye and they could keep playing the old episodes. His legacy has

lived on. For example, there is a sweater drive that is happening right now in Arkansas, where

they are collecting sweaters, like Mr. Rogers's iconic cardigan and donating them to children's

charities. After all these years, Mr. Rogers is still helping people be good neighbors.

Transition: In Conclusion,

Conclusion

Mr. Rogers touched so many people with his work in television and he did it humbly with

the intent to help others. His love for children and his belief in having a childhood full of

imagination and kindness helped so many people and it continues to do that today.

I hope we can all learn from his example, to follow our passions, especially when we can

help other people. To quote the song he sang at the end of every episode, ‘You know you can

always help to make each day a special way, by just you're being yourself. You grow in your own

way everyone does. That's one reason each one of us is different and special, and people can like

us exactly as we are.’