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Crow’s letter to Obama: ASU ‘has selected you’

It started with a letter.

When Arizona State University officials got word that President Barack Obama would likely speak at a couple of university commencement ceremonies this spring, they quickly drafted a two-page letter in hopes of getting him at ASU.

They got right to the point.

“As president of Arizona State University, it is my distinct honor and pleasure to inform you that the university has selected you as our 2009 commencement speaker,” ASU President Michael Crow wrote in the March 12 letter.

The White House accepted.

On Wednesday, Obama will become the first U.S. president to speak at an ASU commencement.

The crowd expected to attend ASU’s commencement has swelled to 63,000 and appears to be the largest U.S. audience the president will have addressed since his inauguration.

Citizen Online Archive, 2006-2009

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

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