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  • "Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan."

    --John Bunyan

Matt Lauer

Matthew "Matt" Todd Lauer is an American television journalist best known as the host of NBC's The Today Show since 1997.  He was born in New York City, New York, the son of Marilyn Kolmer, a boutique owner, and Jay Robert Lauer, a bicycle-company executive. Lauer is of Romanian descent, as seen on the Today Show's "Finding Our Roots." His parents divorced during his youth, and his father died in 1997. Lauer had become co-host of The Today Show not long before his father's death. In 1999, both Matt and his cohost Katie Couric initially resisted participation in Today's proposed series about their family roots. The series turned out to be a hit, and Matt was moved by what he learned about his immigrant ancestors. "My dad was Jewish. My mom is not. So I was not raised anything. I do feel a desire now to find something spiritual. Getting married and wanting to have kids has something to do with that."
 
Matt is a School of Media Arts and Studies (formally the School of Telecommunications) graduate of Ohio University. He attended Ivy Tech, but left six credits short of graduating in 1979. In 1997, he received his degree from Ohio University. The university awarded him his remaining credits by counting his journalism experience as "independent study" towards his degree. Matt began his television career in 1979 as a producer of the 12 o'clock news for WOWK-TV in Huntington, West Virginia. By 1980, he had become an on-air reporter on the 6 and 11 o'clock newscasts. He then started to move around the country to further his career, hosting a number of weekly information and talk programs in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Richmond. He was also host of PM Magazine from 1980-1986 and worked for ESPN in the 1980s. He worked on the show "Talk of the Town" during 1988.

He got his first job in the New York area when he was hired to host a three-hour live interview program, WWOR-TV's 9 Broadcast Plaza, from 1989–1991. In 1990, he was hired by the Kushner-Locke Company to host a pilot called "Day In Court," executive produced by veteran producer David Sams, who helped to launch the Oprah Winfrey Show into national syndication. The program was retitled, "Trial Watch," when it went to series, and ran on the NBC network for two seasons. Ironically, NBC chose to hire Rob Weller, as host, over Matt when the program was picked up as a daily series. Matt moved to WNBC-TV in 1992 where he became co-anchor, alongside Jane Hanson, of the early weekday news show Today in New York. After a year, he also filled the role of Live at Five co-anchor with Sue Simmons. He held that job until 1996.

Matt's broad on-camera presence provided him with many opportunities with NBC's national news organization while working for WNBC in New York. He filled in as the newsreader on The Today Show for Margaret Larson when needed from 1992 to 1993. This "audition" period allowed him to join The Today Show full-time in January 1994 as news anchor, while still co-anchoring Today in New York and Live at Five.

He stepped in for Scott Simon, Mike Schneider and Jack Ford as the co-host of Weekend Today, and for Ann Curry as anchor of the former NBC News program NBC News at Sunrise from 1992 to 1997. He had also filled in for Tom Brokaw on NBC Nightly News. As the Today Show news anchor, he also pinch-hit for Bryant Gumbel on the Today Show before being named the official co-anchor on January 6, 1997, after Gumbel stepped down. In April 2006, Matt announced that he intends to stay with Today until 2011.

In addition to his duties on the Today Show, Lauer has also hosted programming on the Discovery Channel and MSNBC.

Beginning in 1998, Lauer has embarked on a once-yearly five-day globe-spanning adventure called "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" on the Today Show. It was named after the PBS game show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? from which it borrowed the theme song. This segment has sent Lauer to the far reaches of the Earth where he has reported on the importance of each location. In recent years, he has broadcast from locations including Bhutan, Easter Island, the Panama Canal, Iran, Hong Kong, Croatia, and the Great Wall of China.

Lauer was married from 1982 until 1989 to a television producer named Nancy Alspaugh. The marriage ended in divorce. From 1989 until 1996, he dated Kristen Gesswein, a television newscaster. They were briefly engaged. In 1998, he married Annette Roque, a Dutch model known as "Jade." She appeared in one of Revlon's 1991 ads, "The Most Unforgettable Women in the World Wear Revlon." During Annette's pregnancy with their third child in 2006, she and Lauer separated. Although Annette filed for divorce in Manhattan Supreme Court on September 13, 2006, the couple subsequently reconciled.

Let's pray diligently that God will bring "sent ones" into Matt and Annette's lives so that they can find Jesus, the Truth, who will set them free for all of eternity!

--Heidi

 

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