Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

First RootsTech Keynote Speaker Announced

In following the trend started last year, RootsTech has gone outside of the traditional genealogy or technology venue to select a celebrity Keynote Speaker. This year's first announcement is singer, actor, triple-threat television series host (talk show, game show, variety show), best-selling author (his autobiography entered the UK bestseller chart at #1), commercial spokesman, motivational speaker, and even a race car driver, Donny Osmond. It also helps that he is from Utah Valley and a local celebrity. Here is the rest of the announcement:
Throughout his illustrious career, Donny earned 33 gold records; selling roughly 120 million albums. In 2011, he and Marie released their first studio album “Donny and Marie” in over two decades. The single “A Beautiful Life” became #1 on the US Country Charts. 
Within the last few years, Donny has entertained an array of audiences. In 2007, he starred on Broadway as Gaston in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast; hosted two television series on British network television; was a special correspondent for Entertainment Tonight; and in 2009 was crowned Dancing with the Stars champion. 
Today, Donny performs at the Flamingo Las Vegas alongside his sister, Marie, in their show “The Donny & Marie Show” which earned “Best of Las Vegas” by the Las Vegas Review Journal three years in a row.
It will be interesting to see how the rest of the lineup appears. I guess the days of the genealogy company CEOs giving keynotes is over.

1 comment:

  1. I'm trying to think back to 2010 which, I believe, was the last time there was a joint NGS/Roots Tech (wasn't called Roots Tech back then) conference. If I'm dredging things up correctly from the memory banks I think the keynote was a video of the Granite Mountain Records Vault followed by Jay Verkler talking about efforts to put the records online. Interesting how we have gone from that to Donny Osmond.

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