CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : ARCATA : Steen Tells Students to Cherish Freedom

Former Mideast hostage Alann Steen renewed his California driver’s license en route to deliver a speech at Humboldt State University, where he told former colleagues and students: “Freedom is so wonderful, so fragile. Just don’t take it for granted.” Steen was chosen to deliver the 1992 Hadley Distinguished Lecture in Journalism. Steen, a former instructor at Humboldt State, is a visiting professor at Albion College in Michigan. He has said he may settle in California, where his two daughters live. Steen was kidnaped in January, 1987, after returning to Lebanon to teach at Beirut University. He was held five years by Shiite Muslim captors.