Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Rahima S. Ullah and her daughter, Sakina Ahmad, 6, along with (left back)Anita Alam and Jasmin Ullah (right back in yellow), all from Herndon, watch Ullah's sister, Yasmin Shafiq, 21, an Agricultural Science major, graduate from Virginia Tech on Friday night at Lane Stadium.

Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Virginia Tech students begin their procession into Lane Stadium for graduation on Friday night.

Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

A Virginia Tech graduating senior smiles as she listens to Hoda Kotb speak at the Virginia Tech commencement.

BLACKSBURG -- Hoda Kotb began her speech Friday night by telling Virginia Tech's 2008 graduating class how forgettable most commencement speakers are.

But judging by the reaction she received from the nearly 4,000 students and the crowd at Tech's Lane Stadium, the 1986 Tech graduate and co-anchor of NBC's "Today" show won't be forgotten. Mixing in self-deprecating humor, a brief musical interlude and a message about overcoming tragedy, Kotb left the lectern with the crowd still cheering and students jumping up and down.

Kotb began her speech by talking about how she reassures colleagues who ask how Tech students are doing in the wake of the April 16, 2007, shootings on campus that left 33 people dead.

She starts by asking them, "Have you ever met anybody from Virginia Tech?

"We're people who rise up," she said.

She then went on to more conventional concerns for new graduates, telling a brief story about her not-so-brief job search after she graduated. Kotb explained how she was turned down by 27 television news directors, traveling from Richmond to Roanoke and then all over the East Coast.

"I got rejected in Dothan, Alabama," she said, furrowing her brow. "Where is that?"

Kotb launched her career at a CBS affiliate in Greenville, Miss., and told the students that their job is out there, they just need to find it.

A breast cancer survivor, she talked about how her ordeal brought with it a few gifts. She said she realized her life had "margins" and was not to be wasted. And there was another benefit.

"When you survive a tragedy, you get four words: You cannot scare me," she said. "It doesn't matter because you have been there."

The April 16 tragedy wasn't the focus Friday that it was at last year's graduation -- which included the awarding of posthumous degrees to students killed less than a month earlier.

But other speakers, including students and Tech President Charles Steger, spoke about how difficult and meaningful the past year had been.

Steger said the class had been tested by the tragedy and had shown the world their compassion for one another and for others, citing the thousands of hours of community service done by students to honor the victims. He said their experience, as difficult as it was, will serve them well.

"You have been there for one another during the toughest of times and together you have laughed and you have cried," he said. "And you have prevailed."

After holding the ear buds of her mp3 player up to the microphone to treat the students to a Hokie football staple -- the beginning of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" -- Kotb finished her speech with a similar forward-looking theme.

"They said it would be tough to rise up, but you did," she said. "They said it will be hard to change the world, but you will."