A queen is in town
Queen Noor, the American-born widow of Jordan's King Hussein, is in High Point. She's the graduation speaker at High Point University this morning.
HPU President Nido Qubein gave a reception in her honor last night. Really, it was an opportunity for guests to meet her.
She is very gracious, personable, not overly regal but certainly dignified.
Check out her bio. She's well educated (among the first women graduates of Princeton) and had launched a successful professional career -- interrupted just slightly to become queen of a Middle Eastern country. But she's been an outstanding ambassador for Jordan for nearly three decades, definitely not a woman who disappeared from public view. Just the opposite; she was usually at her husband's side -- when she wasn't pursuing her own initiatives on behalf of important causes.
She's written a memoir -- last night's guests received autographed copies -- which looks fascinating.
No doubt she'll have a compelling message to share with HPU grads today.
Comments (2)
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Diego,
Hey, I came home from Jordan with a bit of Jordanian currency. You think the Queen would...oh, never mind.
If you see the Queen, tell her Amman is a great city, but ask her if she can do something about those four-hour border crossings into Israel, complicated by the "bus with no schedule."
Nido's got some connections, huh?
johann
Posted on May 8, 2006 12:59 PM
Johann, I almost mentioned you to her. She seems pretty well informed so I thought she might have heard you were in town. Seriously, I was going to pass on your observation about the friendliness of people there, but there wasn't much time for chit-chat. The receiving line was moving along pretty fast.
Posted on May 8, 2006 2:52 PM