Jeopardy! Host Ken Jennings is among the speakers headed to Fresno as part of the San Joaquin Valley Town Hall series.
The Town Hall series announced its lineup for its 89th season, starting this fall.
The big picture: The Town Hall series is bringing in eight speakers for its season, which runs from September to April of next year.
- Daytime Talks will be held at Saroyan Theater in downtown Fresno, while Twilight Talks will be at the Paul Shaghoian Concert Hall at Clovis North High School in northeast Fresno.
Who’s coming: Dr. Ashish Jha will open the series on Sep. 17 with a Twilight Talk. Jha was the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator under President Joe Biden from 2022 to 2023. He will speak on climate change as a public health emergency.
- Next up on Oct. 15 is ABC News reporter Bob Woodruff, who survived a roadside bombing in Iraq in 2006 and has founded an organization to assist wounded veterans and their families.
- Roman Catholic Priest Greg Boyle will come to Fresno on Nov. 19. Boyle is a Jesuit Priest and founded the world’s largest gang intervention program.
- Dr. Steve Boyes is scheduled to speak on Jan. 21, 2026. Boyes is a conservationist and will speak about the Okavango Delta in Africa.
- On Feb. 18, 2026, Daniel James Brown and Tom Ikeda will deliver a talk. They authored The boys in the Boat and founded the Densho Project. They will talk about American concentration camps during World War II.
- Jennnings will speak on March 18, 2026. The all-time Jeopardy! champion and current host will talk about lifelong learning. He publicly dissed Fresno in December 2020, when he said on Twitter, “The Grapes of Wrath is probably the only movie where the happy ending is a family moving to Fresno.”
- John Volanthen will give the only other Twilight Talk for the season on March 24, 2026. Volanthen is a cave diver who led the rescue mission of a young Thai football team in 2018.
- Amy Tan will wrap up the season on April 15. Tan is the best-selling author of The Joy Luck Club. She will give a talk on how observing nature became a source of creativity, mindfulness and wonder.
Tickets: Tickets are available for each talk on the Town Hall’s website.
