USA NETWORK AND TOM BROKAW TEASE THEIR 2010 DOCUMENTARY "AMERICAN CHARACTER ALONG HIGHWAY 50"WITH THE FIRST OF EIGHT DISPATCHES

First stop, Maryland, a sleepy crabbing town along Highway 50. Tom Brokaw discovers one woman's story of triumph during a time of economic upheaval. A bank determines she's too much of a risk and a community steps in.

This Wednesday, May 27 at 7/6c, USA Network will offer the first in a series of short monthly broadcast updates, "Dispatches From The Road," featuring Tom Brokaw's inspiring encounters with real Americans during his Highway 50 road trip for his upcoming documentary TOM BROKAW PRESENTS: AMERICAN CHARACTER ALONG HIGHWAY 50. Future reports will also be featured on NBC's television and online properties including "Today Show" and "NBC Nightly News."

In the first installment, Brokaw's initial stop is 60 miles along as he relays the inspiring story of risk-taker Amanda Bramble, a spirited entrepreneur who has realized her personal American dream of opening a seafood restaurant in the sleepy fishing town of Cambridge, Maryland near Chesapeake Bay. "Everyone thought I was crazy, and so did I," she offers in a candid interview. Bramble shares the plight of local fisherman forced to leave the waters to support their families and recounts the difficult personal challenges created by the recession. Denied financing from the banks, Bramble's passion compelled nine investors from the community to pool their cash and sweat equity to make her culinary dream of Jimmie & Sook's a reality. "Everyone here is giving when there is nothing to give," Bramble says, commenting on the true American grit of the town. "Like crabs, we cling to each other and wait for a place to settle."

USA Network and legendary journalist Tom Brokaw are setting out to capture the changing face of a nation in the documentary TOM BROKAW PRESENTS: AMERICAN CHARACTER ALONG HIGHWAY 50. Inspired by a series of photographs in USA Network's book American Character: A Photographic Journey, for which he penned the foreword, Brokaw will be hitting the road for an extraordinary journey along Highway 50, a route that has been called the "backbone of America." As he traverses the 12 states along this 3000-mile transcontinental road, Brokaw will document the lives of the Americans he encounters, exploring the profound economic, political and cultural changes they are experiencing during these uncertain, and particularly historic, times.

AMERICAN CHARACTER ALONG HIGHWAY 50 will premiere on USA Network in January 2010 as a one-hour primetime documentary special timed to the first anniversary of President Obama's inauguration. This is the first of Brokaw's monthly updates on his travels in "Dispatches From The Road," short vignettes featuring the people and places he will visit on his Highway 50 road trip.

Check out the first "Dispatch" at: www.highway50.tv