Author Mark Bowden draws 500 to Severn School

Author Mark Bowden enthralled nearly 500 local residents on Wednesday at the David Astle Memorial Lecture Series sponsored by Severn School.  Bowden, a true case of local author makes good, wrote the bestselling tomes Black Hawk Down, Killing Pablo and Guests of the Ayatollah. He is a contributing editor to other notable publications including Vanity Fair magazine, National Public Radio, Sports Illustrated, the New York Times and others.

At the free public lecture, Bowden shared humorous stories with the audience beginning with  his days at Loyola College in Baltimore where he served as editor of a skeletal student newspaper.

Upon graduation Bowden went on to serve as a cub reporter for the Baltimore News American and then to the Philadelphia Inquirer. In his comments Bowden  pointed out that while our young journalists are blessed with the Internet, the ease and glut of information available can be a detriment as well.

"Young writers can sit alone in a room and blog at will. They really never need to leave their chairs if they don't want to. They can take the information off the web and spin it as fact," he said. "But often the information out there is not fact: it is hearsay and opinion. Journalists need to get out and into their stories.

They must talk to sources face-to- face and physically see the places they are writing about. In order to understand what you are writing about you have to lose yourself in it and check the facts for yourself." He likened some Internet-inspired journalism to the childrens' game "Telephone," where facts and words are distorted each time they are re-uttered.

"Many of the facts on the Internet are really second, third and fourth generation regurgitations treated like facts."

"He was so engaging and interesting.  He seemed to be such a genuine person and had a great sense of humor in both of his presentations," said West Severna Park resident Alison Hall.

Bowden addressed the Severn Upper School students and faculty Wednesday afternoon at a private assembly about his experiences in Somalia's capital of Mogadishu and the process of researching and writing of his most famous book and screenplay Black Hawk Down.

The story which was made into a movie directed by Ridley Scott and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer in 2001 is about the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu when an elite group of American Rangers and Delta Force soldiers were sent to Somalia on a critical mission to capture a violent warlord whose corrupt regime has lead to the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Somalis. When the mission goes terribly wrong, the men find themselves outnumbered and literally fighting for their lives.

"You know he's good when he can keep a group of high school students completely engaged for more than an hour," Hall said. "He did the same with the adults on Wednesday night and it was a completely different topic. He's a very good speaker."

Some of the other interesting stories that Bowden covered and spoke about included the still unsolved disappearance of the Lyon sisters who disappeared in 1975 from the Wheaton Plaza in Montgomery County; the first shuttle launch at Cape Canaveral; and the assassination of notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.

His article "The Case of the Vanishing Blonde" about the police investigation into a brutal Florida rape is in the December issue of Vanity Fair magazine on your newsstands now.  

Severn School's David Astle Memorial Lecture Series

Senator John and Jayne Astle established an endowment fund in 1998 after the tragic accidental death of their son David Sheridan Astle. A 1992 Severn School alumnus, David was an active member of the school community during his seven years as a student, and a well liked member of the alumni body.  The David Astle Memorial Endowment funds an annual lecture series through which knowledgeable and/or inspirational speakers are invited to share their expertise, experiences, and messages with the community.