Gull Lake Schools to Host Greg Mortenson, Author of Three Cups of Tea

The Gull Lake Community Schools Foundation is delighted to be hosting Greg Mortenson as part of the upcoming school year’s Distinguished Speaker Series.  Mortenson is an author, philanthropist and mountaineer whose book, Three Cups of Tea, has been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 100 weeks

Mortenson will be meeting with Gull Lake students on Thursday, Oct. 29.  “We are so excited that Greg selected Gull Lake as one of his speaking engagements for late 2009,” said Marie Stech, chairperson of the Foundation. Mortenson will meet with students at all grade levels during presentations during the school day.  A ticketed community event, Sharing Three Cups of Tea, will be held that evening at Gull Lake High School.

Greg Mortenson is the co-founder of nonprofit Central Asia Institute and Pennies For Peace, and co-author of the bestseller Three Cups of Tea, which also was Time Magazine Asia’s Book of the Year.  A young reader’s edition of Three Cups of Tea and a picture book, Listen to the Wind, were introduced in January 2009.

In 1993, to honor his sister’s memory, Mortenson climbed Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain in the Karakoram range.  After K2, while recovering in a local village called Korphe, Mortenson met a group of children sitting in the dirt writing with sticks in the sand, and made a promise to help them build a school.

From that rash promise grew a remarkable humanitarian campaign, in which Mortenson has dedicated his life to promoting education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mortenson has established more than 78 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan -- providing education to over 28,000 children including 18,000 girls -- where few education opportunities existed before.

Mortenson is a living hero to rural communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he has gained the trust of Islamic leaders, military commanders, government officials and tribal chiefs from his tireless effort to champion education, especially for girls.

NBC newscaster, Tom Brokaw, calls Mortenson, “one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, who is really changing the world.”

More information about Greg Mortenson is available at www.gregmortenson.com, www.threecupsoftea.com, www.ikat.org and penniesforpeace.org.