He’s still 2,718 plates of bacon, eggs and hashbrowns shy of his mentor’s record of 3,241 breakfast interviews, but Christian Science Monitor Washington Bureau Chief David Cook is making history of his own, crossing the 500 mark this year with headliners including House Speaker John Boehner and likely 2016 GOP presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio.

Along the way to hosting 523 Monitor newsmaker breakfasts, lunches and even teas for reporters since coming to Washington in September 2001, he has also instituted modern changes to the events long known as the “Sperling Breakfast,” for Godfrey “Budge” Sperling who launched them in 1966.