POWELL

PROVIDENCE –– Gen. Colin Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who served as secretary of state during President George W. Bush’s first term, will deliver the keynote address for the U.S. Scholar-Athlete Games — now under way at the University of Rhode Island — tomorrow evening in the Providence Performing Arts Center.

Powell will speak at 7 p.m. and later take questions from the audience. Tickets, on sale at the PPAC box office, are $20 for adults and $15 for students 18 and younger.

Schedule permitting, Powell may also lead the games’ first “peace walk ” by about 1,000 competitors and their coaches in downtown Providence tomorrow afternoon. The walk is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. from the park on South Main Street near the Licht Judicial Complex and proceed along the river walk to Burnside Park.

Since the games began, in 1993, the goal has been to eventually hold a “peace summit,” said Dan Doyle, the games’ founder and executive director of the Institute for International Sport, which sponsors the games. The peace walk is the first in a series of events meant to lead up to the summit, he said.

The U.S. Scholar-Athlete Games began Saturday and continue through Saturday at URI; it includes high school students from almost every state and 20 nations.