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.
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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