The late ''60 Minutes'' journalist Ed Bradley was eulogized as a man who believed he was doing God's work during a memorial Tuesday that drew admirers from National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern to shock jock Howard Stern.

Bradley died of leukemia at 65 on Nov. 9. His family organized a memorial at the Riverside Church that doubled as New York's hippest concert venue for the day: Aaron and Art Neville, Jimmy Buffett, Allen Toussaint, Wynton Marsalis, Lizz Wright and Irma Thomas all performed in tribute to Bradley, a music lover.

Comic Bill Cosby, a fellow Philadelphian, recalled the days Bradley was at historically black Cheyney State College (now Cheyney University) and told his football coach that he couldn't afford half his tuition. The coach came up with the money -- all $75 of it.
''Ed was the center,'' Cosby said. ''Even on an all-black team everybody couldn't be in the backfield.''

Forty years later, Bradley wrote a check for $60,000 to start a foundation at Cheyney so he could help students as strapped as he had been, Cosby said.

Clinton recalled a story Bradley had done about a rare woodpecker in Arkansas. ''It was the first time in 30 years that I knew as much about what he was talking about [as] he did,'' said the former Arkansas governor.

''I knew I had arrived in national politics when Ed Bradley wanted to interview me,'' Clinton said. ''I always preferred watching him interview others.''

Source: http://www.yahoo.com
POSTED BY DAVID BAUDER


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