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Tom Brokaw, back in his hometown on the banks of the Missouri River, borrowed a bicycle on a cool, sunny June morning and went for a spin down the Auld-Brokaw trail.
The NBC anchor had arrived in Yankton the night before, after addressing graduates of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Just eight days earlier he was among the world's most powerful people at the funeral of President Reagan at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Nine days later he would be in Baghdad.
But now he was back to see friends and family in the familiar surroundings of the South Dakota town where he first broadcast the news.
Wearing a baseball cap and a blue and red windbreaker, he pedaled the 3-mile trail past the neighborhoods of his youth.
His wife of nearly 42 years, Meredith, walked their black lab, Abby. The Brokaws, college sweethearts who met at Yankton High School, were here to dedicate an outdoor classroom that accompanies the trail named to honor their parents.
Brokaw has been reporting on major news events for nearly 40 years. He'll leave the NBC anchor chair in December after a two- decade run, the first of TV's "Big Three" - Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather - to retire.
Although he has lived and worked in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York City, Brokaw, 64, still calls South Dakota home. He comes back every year to hunt pheasant; he gives money to scholarships and civic projects, and he keeps lifelong friendships thriving with visits to Yankton and elsewhere in the state.
He says he gets the grounding he needs to do his high-profile job from his Midwestern roots.
"It helps me do what I do when I sit in that big chair every night at 6:30 surrounded by all these monumental events that are going on around the world," he said.
"It really always helps keep the rest of my life in some perspective to know what's going on in these communities in the heartland and about the pace of life here and the kind of long view about what they want to do. They don't get hysterical about the day- to-day news as those of us who live in New York do....