1999
I. Willis Cole is a distinguished Louisville newspaper editor and publisher and champion of human rights. He was born on January 22, 1887, in Memphis, Tennessee. He graduated from Lemoyne Junior College in 1906 and later attended the University of Chicago. Cole started his newspaper career as a carrier at age 12. He became the owner, publisher, and editor of the Louisville Leader in 1917, Kentucky’s first African American daily, which boasted as its motto: “We print your news, we employ your people, we champion your cause.” As the Leader, Cole was a persistent champion of justice and fair play for African Americans. He was active in the fight against Jim Crow laws and the push against segregated recreation facilities and streetcars in Louisville, he wrote editorials that were quoted by local, regional, and national publications. He helped mobilize support for bond issues to benefit black schools in Louisville. Cole was congratulated by President Harry S Truman for his editorials just before his death in 1950. He was a de-voted church member and civic leader. He was also a member of the National Negro Press Hall of fame and inducted into the Distinguished Gallery of Black Newspaper Publishers in 1991. He has a historic highway marker in his honor dedicated in 1997. The University of Louisville Archives houses what remains of daily issues of the paper, there are about 1,200 editions.
Earl Cox is a native of Irvine, in Eastern Kentucky, and is now a popular sports columnist for the Voice-Tribune in Louisville. He writes a weekly syndicated sports column for papers across the state. He began his sportswriting career while a student at UK. Cox covered Transylvania University’s basketball and baseball teams and sports at Lafayette High School for the Lexington Herald. While in the Army, he worked at the Indianapolis Star. He returned to the Herald in 1955. Cox joined the Courier-Journal where he worked for 33 years. In his role as executive sports editor of the combined sports department of the Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times, he provided readers with excellent sports pages. Cox is the founder and president of Associated Press Sports Editors. He was inducted into the prestigious Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame in 1997. Cox is a staunch supporter of high school sports, and a member of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame. He was named in 1998 as an “All-American” by the UK Jefferson County Alumni Association.
Walter Dear II was a Western Kentucky newspaper editor and publisher. He was born on June 26, 1932 in Jersey City, NJ into a newspaper family. He was educated in public schools there, graduated in 1953 from University of North Carolina, where he was editor of the Daily Tar Heel. Dear joined family-owned Gleaner and Journal, a morning daily, in Henderson in 1960, and became publisher in 1963. He, his wife and three children purchased the Gleaner, seven west Kentucky weeklies from Dear Publication & Radio in 1986. As company president, he insisted on high standards and aggressive but fair community journalism. He believed strongly in giving young journalists an opportunity. Three photojournalists who launched careers at the Gleaner later won or shared in five Pulitzers. Dear is an active community leader and was named Henderson’s Distinguished Citizen in 1992. He sold his company to Dallas-based A.H. Belo Corp. in March 1997.
Joe Dorris is a legendary columnist for the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, revered for his homespun tales that entertained Western Kentucky for decades. He was born August 17, 1908, in Hopkinsville and a 1929 graduate of Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky, and the University of Missouri. He joined the New Era in the fall of 1930 as a part-time sportswriter and was promoted to full-time reporter in February 1931. He worked continuously for the newspaper for six decades, except for a four-year stint in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945. Dorris returned to the New Era after World War II and served as a reporter and editor for news and sports. He is credited with writing the first news report about an alleged alien landing near a farmhouse in Kelly, Kentucky, in 1955, which created a nationwide flurry of coverage. Dorris was named editor and publisher 1965, the same year he began writing the daily “Watching the Parade” column. He was hailed as the most popular feature in the New Era’s 120-year history, the column was a daily fixture in the newspaper, helping unite the Pennyrile region, preserve Hopkinsville’s rich history, spark interaction with readers and put current events into context. His conversational writing style and dry wit delighted generations of readers and served as inspiration for aspiring journalists in the region. He retired from the New Era in 1978, he continued to write his column until March 1993.
Richard G. Wilson is a longtime education and political reporter for the Courier-Journal. Native to Towanda, Pennsylvania, Wilson is a 1966 journalism graduate of the University of Kentucky. He was Editor of the Kentucky Kernel. He served in the Army for four years, including a stint in Korea. He was a reporter for Lexington Leader, Frankfort State Journal, and an advisor to Kentucky Kernel. He also worked for University of Kentucky in preparation for its Centennial celebration. He joined the Courier-Journal in 1967. He spent two years in Louisville before joining Frankfort bureau, covering state government, politics, education and political campaigns for 16 years. In 1985, he became Courier-Journal’s Bluegrass Bureau Chief in Lexington, where he continued to cover higher education and regional issues throughout Central Kentucky. He became known as one of the nation’s pre-eminent reporters concerning higher education issues. In 1984, he won the Kentucky School Boards Association exemplary investigative reporting award for a series of stories with Richard Whitt, entitled “What’s Wrong with Kentucky Schools.” The series won the Kentucky Education Association’s Annual School Bell award. He was a longtime teacher of public affairs reporting at University of Kentucky and mentor of hundreds of young journalism students. He’s an active member of the UK Journalism Alumni Association board of directors.
Sue Wylie is a reporter, anchor and public affairs director for WLEX-TV in Lexington. She is a pioneer for women in television. She is a graduate of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She began her broadcast career in the 1950s in Cincinnati with WLWT-TV, WCPO-TV and WKRC-TV, where she did dramatics and voices for “The Storm,” a Rod Sterling show. In 1954, she moved to Columbus, Ohio to work at WTVN-TV. In 1956, Wylie moved to Miami to work on new NBC affiliate, WCKT-TV, where she was a news reporter and midday news anchor. She was the first woman to be a hard news reporter in the Miami market. She moved to Lexington in 1968 and began working for WLEX-TV. She stayed with WLEX for 30 years. She created the show, “Your Government,” in 1972. Wylie interviewed governors, U.S. presidents and leading politicians throughout Kentucky and nation. She started radio talk show, “The Front Page with Sue Wylie,” in 1996 on WVLK. She earned several awards, including Associated Press awards for TV Series and Reporting for Excellence. Wylie also won the Kentucky Broadcasters Association award for Best News Series for her coverage of the Eddyville Penitentiary.
1998
George N. Gill is a native of Indianapolis, and a journalism graduate from Indiana University. He started his career at the Richmond News-Leader as a reporter before moving to the Courier-Journal as a copy editor in 1960. Later, he served as a reporter, acting Sunday editor, assistant city editor, and city editor before becoming one of the nation’s youngest managing editors in 1966, for a period of eight years. He covered civil rights movement and early U.S. space missions as a reporter. The Courier-Journal won two Pulitzer Prizes under his leadership. He switched to the business side of operations in 1974, becoming general manager and later president of all Bingham media properties. He was named publisher of the newspapers when they were sold to Gannett in 1986. He received Outstanding Alumnus Award from Indiana University in 1984 and a honorary degree in 1994. As a civic leader he headed the Greater Louisville Economic Development Partnership, Metro United Way fund drive, Louisville Area Chamber of Commerce and Louisville Rotary Club. He served on numerous community boards. Currently, he serves as chairman of trustees for the American Printing House for the Blind. He retired as president and publisher of the Courier-Journalin 1993 after a career of 33 years.
David Nakdimen graduated from the journalism department at the University of Kentucky in 1955. He is a native of Virginia. Nakdimen had an early career as a sports writer at the Lexington Leader following postgraduate work at UK. He joined WAVE Radio and Television in 1961 as a city hall reporter, later specializing in political coverage. He is responsible for coverage of city and county government and the legislature, along with gubernatorial and other state and national elections over the past 36 years. He broke the story of the collapse of Prudential and American building and loan associations in the 1970s. Nakdiemn also covered floods of 1964 and 1997, open housing demonstrations of 1967, tornados of 1974 and 1996, school desegregation and court-ordered busing in 1975, and other top stories including seven national political conventions. He has won seven awards from local Society of Professional Journalists chapter, two Gavel Awards from Louisville Bar Association for coverage of courts, a regional Emmy award, several AP awards for commentary, and a Gabriel Award from the Catholic Broadcasters Association of America for an open housing documentary.
William R. Neikirk is a native of Irvine, Kentucky and was a journalism graduate from the University of Kentucky in 1960. He was the editor of the Kentucky Kernel. He started as a sports reporter for the Lexington Herald before joining the Associated Press, working first in Louisville, then Lexington and next in Frankfort as a capital correspondent. Neikirk covered Combs administration and bitter Breathitt-Chandler campaign. He moved to Baton Rouge and then to Washington as an economic correspondent. He joined the Chicago Tribune in 1974 covering the economy and politics and served two stints as White House correspondent. He was also a Pulitzer Prize runner-up for his 1979 series on world trade. Neikirk wrote nationally syndicated column on economics. He is the author of two books, Volker, Portrait of the Money Man, and The Work Revolution. He is the winner of numerous national awards, including two John Hancock Business Writing Awards, Loeb Business Writing Award, Raymond Clapper Memorial Award and Merriman Smith Award.
Duanne Puckett started her journalism career as receptionist and reporter for the Shelby News in 1971. A year later she became a staff writer for the merged Sentinel-News. Served as classified advertising manager and Family Living editor before being named news editor in 1982. She became editor in 1989, responsible for two newspapers a week, a weekly shopper and 12 special sections a year. Her paper won numerous awards from Kentucky Press Association for journalistic excellence under her leadership. She received awards from the local chapter of Society of Professional Journalists and received first Landmark Community Newspapers award for community service. She is active in the community, and received Shelbyville Business Professional Woman of Achievement award, Kentucky Farm Bureau Communications Award, and Shelby County Chamber of Commerce Small Business Advocate of the Year award. Puckett co-founded Shelby County Literacy Council and serves as volunteer writing teacher and Sunday School teacher. She was named community relations coordinator for Shelby County Public Schools in 1998. She died on February 21, 2021.
Billy Reed is a native of Mount Sterling and is a graduate of Transylvania University. He started his sports writing career in 1959 for the Lexington Herald-Leader; he left in 1966 to join sports staff of the Courier-Journal. He worked for Sports Illustrated in 1968 but returned to Kentucky in 1972 as a special projects reporter for the Courier-Journal. He won National Headliner Award and Sigma Delta Chi Award for stories written by him and Jim Bolus about fixed races and problems in the thoroughbred racing industry. Reed became general columnist for the Courier-Journal in 1974; he was named sports editor in 1977. Reed rejoined the Herald-Leader in 1987 as sports columnist and became senior writer for Sports Illustrated in 1990. He was named Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year eight times, won two Eclipse Awards and a National Headliner Award for consistently outstanding sports column in 1982, and numerous other national awards. He is an author of six books. Reed received Distinguished Alumni and Distinguished Service awards from Transylvania University. He is also past-president of the National Turf Writers Association.
1997
Judith Grisham Clabes is a native of Henderson, and a graduate of the University of Kentucky in English and journalism with a master’s degree in public administration from Indiana State University. She is a former teacher and joined Evansville Printing Corporation in 1971 as Newspaper in Education coordinator, later becoming director of community affairs and associate editor of Evansville Press. Clabes became editor of Sunday Courier and Press in Evansville in 1978. She was named editor of the Kentucky Post in 1983 and special projects director for the Scripps newspaper division in 1995. Clabes became president and chief executive officer of the Scripps Howard Foundation the next year. She wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, later produced in book form. She is the author of New Guardians of the Press, a book profiling women newspaper editors. She has obtained two honorary doctorate degrees from University of Southern Indiana and was inducted into University of Kentucky Hall of Distinguished Alumni in 1989. She is a former board member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. She served as president of the Kentucky Associated Press Editors Association in 1985.
E. Hugh Morris is a native of Bowling Green and graduate of Louisville Male High School. He attended Purdue University studying mechanical and electrical engineering, but became interested in journalism and served as managing editor of the student newspaper. He started his journalism career as managing editor of two small newspapers in Attica, Indiana. Morris joined the Courier-Journal in 1937 where he served as a reporter, Indiana editor, assistant city editor, assistant state editor and make-up editor before World War II. He served in the U.S. Navy as air intelligence officer. After the war, Morris went to Frankfort where he was a member of the Frankfort bureau of the Courier-Journal for 23 years, of which 17 were as bureau chief. Morris was part of the team of reporters that won the Pulitzer Prize for the paper for coverage of strip mine abuses and for helping bring about more strict controls. He covered 22 regular and special sessions of the legislature, becoming highly knowledgeable on the workings of the General Assembly, state finances and Kentucky politics. He left the paper in 1969 and served for 10 years on the Legislative Research Commission. Morris won a Nieman Fellowship in 1950 at Harvard University.
Ken Rowland is a native of Kansas where he grew up on a farm and later served as a B-29 gunner in the U.S. Air Force before attending Kansas State University. He started his broadcast career in Kentucky in 1958 as news director and drive-time news anchor for WKLO Radio. Rowland became news director and anchorman for WLKY-TV in 1964 and then served for seven years, starting in 1970, as anchorman and reporter on WHAS-TV. He returned to WLKY-TV as the station’s news anchor. He then received a regional Radio-Television News Directors Association award for his coverage of the Hyden, Kentucky coal mine disaster and led the coverage for WHAS-TV of the tornado in 1974 and the court-ordered busing crisis, for which the station received a national Sigma Delta Chi award. Rowland served two years as president of the Louisville chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and was the first recipient of the chapter’s Kentucky Journalist Award for outstanding achievement in journalism.
Fred Wiche joined WHAS Radio and Television in 1958 after receiving a BA degree from Kalamazoo College and a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University. He was a political reporter for the station and anchor person for the noon and evening news broadcasts; Wiche also served as anchor for area’s first hour-long newscast. Wiche was named farm and garden director in 1979, and became one of the area’s most popular radio-television personalities. He co-authored three books on gardening, one of which, Fred Wiche’s Gardening Almanac, sold more than 50,000 copies and became the state’s most popular garden book. In addition to broadcasting duties, Wiche writes a syndicated newspaper column. He received the Kentucky Farm Bureau Communications Award in 1984, and in 1992 received the Gamma Sigma Delta Award for outstanding contributions to agriculture. He also recognized for service by the Society of Professional Journalists. Wiche served in the U.S. Army in Korea.
1996
Betty J. Berryman is a native of Winchester. She started her newspaper career in 1954 as assistant to the publisher of the Winchester Sun. She became general manager in 1974 and was named publisher and executive vice president in 1988. Berryman serves on the boards of Newspaper Association of American and Publishers Associated to Gain Economy. Berryman became first woman president of Kentucky Press Association in 1986. She served as treasurer of the group for three years during a period of financial difficulty. She was named Kentucky Press Association’s most valuable member in 1981 and 1983; she then received the Edward M. Templin award for community service in 1988. Berryman is active in other national newspaper organizations, such as National Newspaper Association and Southern Newspaper Publishers Association. She served on boards of many local community organizations and as vice president of Winchester-Clark County Chamber of Commerce. Berryman attended the University of Kentucky and taught Sunday School for 35 years.
Mary Caperton Bingham was the matriarch of the Bingham family which owned the Courier-Journal, the Louisville Times, WHAS, Inc. and other communications properties. Active in the operations, she was a book editor of the Courier-Journal between 1942 and 1968, and an editorial writer during the World War II and a vice president and director of the companies. Throughout her life she was a fighter for causes: bookmobiles in rural Kentucky counties, environmental issues, the United Nations, relief to war-torn Europe, arts, education, and libraries. Following the sale of their media empire in 1986, she and her husband gave nearly $60 million in philanthropic grants, including funds for the Louisville Falls Foundation and the Louisville waterfront. She is a native of Richmond, Virginia and a graduate of Radcliffe College. Mary Caperton Bingham died on April 18, 1995.
Max Heath is a native of Campbellsville and a graduate of Campbellsville College where he started his professional journalism career as sports editor and news editor of the Central Kentucky News. He later served as managing editor, editor, and general manager of Central Kentucky News-Journal for more than a decade, following service in U.S. Army as sports editor and editor of a military newspaper in Thailand. Heath became general manager of News Publishing Co., Tell City, Indiana, and editor of Perry County News, winning top awards from Hoosier Press Association. He was named vice president and executive producer of Landmark Community Newspapers, in Shelbyville. Heath has served seven years as chair of the postal committee of National Newspaper Association, which awarded him its President’s Award in 1989, Ambassador Award in 1992 and prestigious Amos Award for service in 1994. Heath became president of Kentucky Press Association in 1987 and received award as most valuable member in 1985 and 1988 and for community service in 1992. He serves on the board of the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation. He was the President of Louisville chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists between 1983 and 1984.
Keen Johnson was Governor of Kentucky between 1939 and 1943 and lieutenant governor from 1935 to 1939. His first love was newspapering, he bought the Mirror, a weekly at Elizabethtown, in 1919. He later sold it and completed his journalism education at the University of Kentucky in 1922, after which he bought the Anderson News, a weekly in Lawrenceburg. He purchased part interest in the Richmond Daily Register in 1925 and became co-publisher, a position he retained until his death. He served briefly as a part-time reporter for the Lexington Herald. Johnson was president of the Kentucky Press Association in 1925 and was also president of the UK Alumni Association and member State Board of Education and Board of Regents at Eastern Kentucky State College. He was an Undersecretary of Labor during Truman Administration and an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senate in 1960. He was vice president and director of Reynolds Metals Co. Johnson served overseas in World War I as first lieutenant. He was a frugal governor who paid off state debt, and left $10 million in surplus. Kenn Johnson died on February 7, 1970.
Daniel A. Rudd was born a slave at Bardstown on August 7, 1854. After the Civil War, he joined his brother in Springfield, Ohio where he received a high school education. He began a weekly African American newspaper in 1884 named the Ohio State Tribune. Becoming convinced that the Catholic Church was the great hope for African Americans, Rudd transformed the newspaper into an African American weekly called the American Catholic Tribune and moved it to Cincinnati and two years later to Detroit. The purpose of the paper was to present the Catholic faith to African Americans since Rudd believed the Catholic Church was the great hope for his people. He helped establish the Catholic Press Association and the Afro-American Press Association. Though the paper ceased publication around 1899, Rudd traveled the country lecturing and went to Europe where he met with two Catholic cardinals. He served on the steering committee for the first general Catholic Congress in 1889 and continued his interest in the cause of Catholicism and African Americans through his newspaper. Rudd returned to his boyhood home where he died on December 3, 1933.
William E. Summers III was a broadcast industry leader for 39 years. He started his journalism career at the Louisville Defender in 1941. Ten years later he was hired as a part-time sports announcer for WLOU Radio. Shortly after he assumed full-time duties was named assistant manager of Rounsaville Radio, a chain of seven African-American formatted stations. He was promoted to vice president and general manager in 1967 and became the first African-American in the U.S. to manage a radio station. Summers purchased WLOU in 1971, becoming the first African-American radio station owner in Kentucky. When WLOU was sold in 1982, he remained as management consultant until 1988. After release from the U.S. Army in 1947 he became a deacon in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and has held pastoral assignments in Taylorsville, Georgetown, Louisville, and Shelbyville. Summers serves as administrative assistant to the bishop of the 13th Episcopal District of the A.M.E. Church.
1995
Mervin R. Aubespin is a native of Louisiana and graduate of Tuskegee University in Alabama, he became the first African American hired as a news artist by the Courier-Journal in 1967. A year later, when racial violence broke out in Louisville, he was pressed into service as a reporter, enabling the paper to cover a major breaking story when there were almost no African Americans in the newsroom. He was later named associate editor for development to assist in finding minority journalists for jobs with the paper. Aubespin is a past president of the National Association of Black Journalists, and was responsible for the growth of NABJ into a major force in American journalism. He won the prestigious Ida B. Wells Award, given jointly by the National Conference of Editorial Writers and NABJ, for efforts to open opportunities for minorities in journalism. He is the founder and twice president of the Louisville Association of Black Communicators, former chairman of the minorities committee of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and adviser to journalism education programs at colleges in Kentucky and elsewhere. He won the Distinguished Service to Journalism Award, given by the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communications, in 1991. He was the first recipient of the Association of Black Colleges of Journalism and Mass Communication’s highest award, named in his honor.
James M. Caldwell is a retired radio-television executive for WAVE, Inc. Native of Bourbon County, and journalism graduate of the University of Kentucky. He was an editor of the Kentucky Kernel. He started his career before World War II as a reporter for the Courier-Journal. He served in the Navy for three-and-a-half years in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and China-Burma-India theaters. Caldwell returned to the Courier-Journal, but joined WAVE Radio in 1946, later becoming program director. He was the first television news director in Kentucky when WAVE-TV went on the air in 1948. He was radio and television promotion director before becoming radio general manager and then vice president of Orion Broadcasting. He is a former board member and president of Kentucky Broadcasters Association, vice chairman of National Association of Broadcasters Radio Board, as well as member and chairman of NBC Affiliates Committee. He was a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives between 1962 and 67 and a minority floor leader from 1966 to 1967. He received the Lincoln Key Award for his role in passing South’s first Civil Rights bill. He is also a former chairman of the Louisville and Jefferson County Crime Commission. Caldwell is active in civic affairs and is currently secretary of the UK Journalism Alumni Association.
Martha P. Comer is a retired editor of the Maysville Ledger-Independent and Daily Independent, in which she served for 42 years. She continues to write a regular column at age 87. She started work at a newspaper in 1924. She was a steadfast proponent of community and industrial development, especially in advocacy of public housing, floodwall, county health department and community college. Comer is the co-founder of Maysville-Mason County Development Association and original member of the Maysville Community College Association and original member of the Maysville Community College Advisory Board. She is an outspoken supporter of civil rights, job creation, education and social equity. She was chosen as the First Lady of the Year in 1953 by Beta Sigma Phi, Maysville’s Most Distinguished Citizen by the Chamber of Commerce in 1976 and Distinguished Alumni of Maysville High School in 1979. She has been long associated with historical restoration in the community. She held leadership positions in numerous civic and community efforts, as well as St. Patrick’s Church.
Thomas T. Hammond is a native of Lexington and earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Equine Genetics from University of Kentucky. He started journalism career with WVLK Radio, serving as a sports announcer, news director and program director. He was named sports director of WLEX-TV in 1969 and became announcer at the Keeneland sales. Hammond started doing SEC basketball play-by-play for TVS network in 1980, the same year he helped form Hammond Productions, Inc., a video production company specializing in equine production. He was hired as a reporter by NBC for first Breeder’s Cup telecast, which won an Eclipse Award. He has been with NBC serving as a Breeder’s Cup host or co-host since 1987. Hammond has year-round network duties including play-by-plays for National Football League and University of Notre Dame football. Some of his previous experience includes the 1992 Olympics, National Basketball Association, NCAA basketball tournaments, college bowl games, major league baseball and other national world sporting events.
Lewis E. Owens has been president and publisher of the Lexington Herald-Leader since 1988. He is a native of Knoxville. He started his newspaper career in 1956 as an advertising salesman for the Fort Worth Press, following his graduation from Gainesville College in Texas. Owens served in advertising management positions at the Gainesville (Texas) Daily Register, Charlotte Observer and News, and Tallahassee Democrat before being named advertising director at the Lexington Herald-Leader in 1975. He later became vice president for sales and marketing and then general manager. He is highly active in the community, served as campaign chairman and president of United Way of the Bluegrass, and as board chairman of the Lexington Chamber of Commerce and the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau. He was president of the Kentucky Press Association in 1984 and voted Most Valuable Member in 1980. He currently serves on numerous civic and community boards and is vice president of the Henry Clay Memorial Foundation. Owens is an industry leader in circulation pricing, Newspapers in Education programs and newspaper production advancements.
Richard Whitt was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Local Reporting in 1978, for his coverage in the Courier-Journal of the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Southgate, Kentucky. He is a native of Greencup County and a graduate of the University of Kentucky School of Journalism, he started his career as a reporter with the Middlesboro Daily News in 1970. He was an assistant state editor of the Waterloo Daily Courier (Iowa) and city editor and assistant managing editor of the Kingsport Times-News (Tennessee) before joining the Courier-Journal in 1977 as a Northern Kentucky Bureau reporter. Whitt later became special projects reporter and Capitol Bureau chief for the paper. In 1988 he won the Southern Journalism award from the Institute for Southern Studies for a series on vote fraud in Kentucky, he was also a Pulitzer finalist for public service. Whitt won the John Hancock Award in 1984 and named a Pulitzer finalist for a series on coal mine safety in Kentucky. He received the Champion Media award in 1983 for a series on the end of the anti-poverty program in Appalachia. He joined the Atlanta Journal & Constitution in 1989 as a reporter, responsible for covering state and local government issues.
1994
Mary Clowes was named editor of the editorial page of the Courier-Journal in 1966, she is believed to be the first woman to hold such a position on a major metropolitan daily newspaper. She is a native of Birmingham, England; she came to Louisville in 1923 and became a reporter for the Louisville Herald-Post. When the paper failed in 1936, she joined the Courier-Journal as a reporter who also wrote editorials. Concerned about poverty, she spent three months in Eastern Kentucky in 1940, writing an 11-part series entitled “Stories on the Mountains,” later reissued as a booklet. The next year, she turned her full attention to writing editorials, especially about the poor and dispossessed. Especially knowledgeable about European politics, particularly the complexities of the role of the French government in exile during World War II. There is no record of her attending College. “I just learned the trade over 30 years,” she said. Mary Clowes died on April 19, 1992.
Larry Craig is a former weekly newspaper editor and publisher. He was an adjunct professor of journalism at Western Kentucky University. He is an ordained Southern Baptist minister. Craig is a native of Todd County, and started his newspaper career as a reporter and columnist for Russellville News-Democrat and Logan Leader, covering politics, education and general news. He was named editor of Green River Republican in Morgantown in 1980 and bought the paper two years later. He gained a reputation for strong editorial positions against the Ku Klux Klan and for other unpopular stands. The newspaper office was once fired upon, and the church he pastored was burned by Klan members, who were sent to prison. He sold the newspaper in 1990 and joined the journalism staff at Western Kentucky University. Craig won numerous awards from the Kentucky Press Association for investigative reporting, editorials and photography. He is a popular speaker on press ethics and First Amendment issues. He was president of the Kentucky Press Association in 1989.
David V. Hawpe has been an editor of the Courier-Journal since 1987. He is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and started his journalism career with the Associated Press in 1965. He later served as editorial writer for the St. Petersburg Times. Hawpe joined the Courier-Journal in the Hazard bureau in 1969; since he has served as editorial writer, copy editor, assistant state editor and managing editor. He was also city editor of the Louisville Times. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and taught there and at the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville. He was president of the Kentucky Press Association in 1990. He is also active in the Associated Press Managing Editors association, American Society of Newspaper Editors and a frequent lecturer at the American Press Institute and the Poynter Institute. He is vice chairman at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism Board of Visitors, and member of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. He has been a Pulitzer Prize juror four times.
Jane Morton Norton was a publisher and editor, Radio-television executive, civic leader, and patron of the arts. She entered broadcasting at WAVE Radio in 1943 when her husband went overseas in World War II. She managed the station in his absence and became chairman and CEO of Orion Broadcasting, Inc., a Louisville-based group of five television stations and three radio stations, at his death in 1964. Norton helped establish WAVE-TV in 1948, Kentucky’s first television station. A year earlier she helped acquire WRXW-FM, Louisville’s first classical music station, which she later donated to the Louisville Free Public Library. Under her leadership, WAVE-TV and Radio tripled its news staff, added a Frankfort bureau, established the city’s first traffic helicopter and weather radar, and started a news documentary unit that won a Peabody Award. She served on the Jefferson County School Board and received the highest honors given by the Advertising Club of Louisville, Spalding University and the National Conference of Christians and Jews. As a trustee of Centre College, she donated the school’s performing arts structure. She served in leadership capacities in numerous arts organizations. Norton is a gifted painter and author. Jane Morton Norton died on August 29, 1988.
Burl Osborne was a publisher and editor for the Dallas Morning News and distinguished newspaper executive. He is a native of Jenkins in Letcher County, he started his career as reporter for the Ashland Daily Independent. He joined the Associated Press in 1960, serving in West Virginia, Colorado, Wyoming, Kentucky and Ohio before becoming a news executive in the AP’s Washington bureau. Osborne joined the Dallas Morning News as executive editor in 1980, rising to the position of president and editor in 1985 and publisher and editor in 1991. He currently is chairman of the board of directors of the American Press Institute and a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board. He is a past president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and vice president of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association. Osborne is active in numerous newspaper and journalistic organizations. In 1990, he was named Adweek Newspaper Executive of the Year and received the Long Island University Distinguished Alumni Award. He was named Editor of the Year in 1992 by the National Press Foundation. He received a journalism degree from Marshall University and a master’s in business from Long Island University. Burl Osborne died in 2012.
1993
C. Thomas Hardin is a native of Owensboro, and a graduate of Centre College. He joined the Courier-Journal as staff photographer in 1964. He was a Sunday Magazine staff photographer from 1969 to 1975 and director of photography and photo and graphics editor from 1975 to 1993. He was amed director of photography for the Detroit News in 1993. He was president of the National Press Photographers Association from 1984 to 1985. Hardin was selected as first Gannett Fellow at Colorado State University Journalist-in-Residence in 1982 and has numerous speaking and discussion leader roles around the nation. Under his direction, the Courier-Journal photo staff won the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of court-ordered busing in 1976, won first place in Sports Pictures of the Year competition for Breeder’s Cup section and other photographers under his direction won numerous top national awards. He is credited by the chief justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court as being the major force behind the adoption of cameras in Kentucky courtrooms. Hardin was named Southern Photographer of the Year and Regional Photographer of the Year by NPPA and received the Joe Costa award. He was a Pulitzer Prize juror for two years. He is a strong advocate of photo-journalism internships. Hardin served in U.S. Army.
Terry hunt is a senior White House correspondent for the Associated Press. Native of Bellevue and a journalism graduate of the University of Kentucky, Hunt started his full-time career with the Associated Press in Louisville in 1968. Following military service, he became a correspondent in the Providence, Rhode Island, bureau until he moved to the Washington bureau in 1974. Hunt served on the national desk until 1978 when he was assigned to cover the U.S. Senate. He covered the Reagan 1980 campaign, moving to AP’s White House office in 1981. He visited some 40 countries with Presidents Reagan and Bush and covered the U.S.—Soviet summits of the Gorbachev era. Hunt worked as an intern two summers at the Cincinnati Post while in college.
Diane Sawyer is an internationally recognized television personality, investigative reporter and anchor person. Native of Glasgow, Sawyer started her broadcast career in Louisville as reporter for WLKY-TV. She held several positions in the Nixon administration before joining CBS News where she spent nine years, including service as State Department correspondent, co-anchor of “CBS Morning News” and “60 Minutes.” She joined ABC News in 1989 as co-anchor of “PrimeTime Live.” Has traveled extensively in U.S. and abroad to report and investigate a wide range of topics and to interview a diverse group of newsmakers and personalities. She was the first American television journalist in history to conduct an interview with the head of the KGB and to tour its headquarters in Moscow. Sawyer is a winner of the National Headliner Award, Sigma Delta Chi Award, Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, Robert F. Kennedy Citation, Emmy Award and the Peabody Award for public service. Sawyer is a graduate from Wellesley College.
1992
Harry C. Barfield was a broadcast executive in North Carolina and Kentucky for 50 years and was with WLEX-TV in Lexington since 1954. He started his career as a radio announcer and advanced in small to medium markets in programming, sales and management. He was president of the Kentucky Broadcasters Association in 1983 and served three terms as director. Barfield received the Kentucky Mike Award from KBA in 1973. He was president of the Television Association of the Bluegrass between 1990 and 1991. He also served as chairman for the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children, Kentucky Division for the American Cancer Society. He was a board member of the Lexington Better Business Bureau, Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and Salvation Army. He was chairman, president and general manager of WLEX-TV at the time of his death on October 11, 1991.
Phyllis Knight was a pioneer female broadcast personality for WHAS radio and television for 26 years. She won two Golden Mike Awards from McCall’s magazine as Outstanding Woman in Radio and Television, in 1958 and 1963, for a series urging women to have the Pap test for cervical cancer and another for the misconceptions about adoption procedures. She joined the Louisville stations in 1955 as home director after starting her career at age 17 at a radio station in Champaign, Illinois. She conducted “Small Talk,” a 15-minute television interview program for 13 years on WHAS-TV. She suffered a mental breakdown after six years in the news department developing human interest and medical stories, recovered and returned to work with a six-part series on depression. Knight made a tradition of wearing fancy hats and changing them each time she was on the air during coverage of Kentucky Derby activities. She was executive director of the WHAS Crusade for Children for six years. She later became executive director for Children’s Hospital Foundation. Knight received numerous awards for her broadcast work.
Donald B. Towles is a native of Lawrenceburg and a journalism graduate from the University of Kentucky in 1948. He started his career as assistant director of publicity for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and editor for the In Kentuckymagazine. He was a reporter and news bureau chief for Pacific Stars and Stripes in Japan, Korea, and Okinawa from 1953 to 1954. He joined the Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times in 1956 as public service manager, later directed promotion, public service, circulation, and public affairs departments. He was named vice president in 1974. He is a member of the board of directors of the Kentucky Press Association for 17 years and served as president in 1982. He wrote revision of state legal publication laws. He served as officer and director for the International Newspaper Promotion Association and was the only person to serve two terms as president during 1980 to 1982. He was editor of Promoting the Total Newspaper in 1983 and president of the Louisville chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists between 1991 and 1992. Towles received a Silver Shovel, the highest award from INPA in 1983. He won an Appreciation Award for distinguished service in 1987, Most Valuable Member from KPA in 1972, Distinguished Service to Community in 1987, Outstanding Alumnus from UK School of Journalism in 1982, and President’s Award from the Boy Scouts of America in 1962. He was president of the UK Journalism Alumni Association, and founder of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame. He is the former president or chairman of the American Red Cross, Heritage Corporation, Louisville Development Program, Medical Center Commission, and Explorer Scouts. Towles serves on numerous civic boards and committees.
1991
Sam Abell is an internationally recognized photographer for National Geographic. He graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1969 where he served as a staff photographer for the Kentucky Kernel and as editor of the Kentuckian, which contained an extraordinary photographic essay on life at UK. He became a contract photographer for National Geographic soon after graduation. He has published on cultural and wilderness subjects and has lectured and exhibited his photographs throughout the world. In 1990, Eastman Kodak and Thomasson-Grant published a retrospective monograph of his photographs titled Stay This Moment. A companion exhibit of his photographs was shown at the International Center for Photography in New York City. He has published four other books in the past five years, two on the Civil War, a book on contemplative gardens of the world, and a book on the American west.
Berry Bingham Jr. was an editor and publisher for the Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times between 1971 and 1986. He is a strong advocate of ethics in journalism. He now publishes Fineline, a journal examining ethical issues. Native of Louisville, Bingham graduated from Harvard with a degree in history in 1956. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps as platoon leader in Okinawa. Bingham worked for CBS in New York before joining the news department of NBC where he did research and field production of documentaries, including “The River Nile” and “Shakespeare: Soul of an Age.” He was vice chairman of the board of WHAS, Inc., and Standard Gravure Corporation. He received the Ida B. Wells award in 1985 for distinguished national leadership in fostering employment opportunities for minorities in American journalism. In 1986, he received the top award from the Louisville chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for defending the First Amendment. He is a past president of Actors Theatre of Louisville, Louisville Orchestra, Louisville Fund for the Arts and Bernheim Forest Foundation. He serves on the boards of numerous civic organizations.
Livingston Taylor was a Frankfort Bureau reporter for the Courier-Journal from 1964 to 1987. He won the Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business and financial journalism for a series of articles in 1973 exposing interest rates paid on state bank deposits. He is a native of Charleston, Illinois, and a journalism graduate of Northwestern University. He served in U.S. Air Force as a navigation instructor. Taylor started his journalism career as a city hall reporter for the Muncie Star in 1956 and won an American Political Science Association award for outstanding reporting in the field of local government. He joined the Courier-Journal in 1961 in the New Albany office of the Southern Indiana Bureau. He was assigned to Frankfort in 1964 and became one of the most respected and accurate reporters in the state capital and was hailed by elected and appointed officials for his determination and courage. After retirement from the Courier-Journal in 1987, he was chairman of a special state commission which drafted election reform legislation.
1990
James D. Ausenbaugh was a metropolitan newspaperman and journalism educator. As a native of Dawson Springs, he received a degree in journalism from University of Kentucky in 1952. He started his career at weekly newspapers in Princeton and Russellville and at The Evansville Press, before joining The Courier-Journal in 1954. He served as copy editor, assistant city editor, city editor and regional editor. Ausenbaugh established statewide newsgathering operation and set up gavel-to-gavel legislative coverage. He spent two years as copy editor, telegraph editor and news editor of The Stars and Stripes in Germany as a civilian during the mid- ‘60s. Since 1976, he has been a professor of journalism at Western Kentucky University and has led numerous writing and editing seminars for newspapers and institutes around the nation. He was named Teacher of the Year at WKU in 1986 and awarded an International Press Institute fellowship to New Zealand in 1958. He is noted for meticulous training of journalism students and professionals. James D. Ausenbaugh died in November of 2017.
Russ Metz has been a publisher of Bath County News-Outlook in Owingsville since 1960 where he serves as a weekly newspaper leader and statewide columnist. Native of Tell City, Indiana, Metz is a veteran of World War II serving with Royal Canadian Air Force and U.S. Air Force. He started journalism his career in Indiana. He served as the president of the Kentucky Press Association in 1981 and led drive for organization to purchase its own headquarters and expand membership services; he was named most valuable member in 1977. Metz is a founding member of the Kentucky Weekly Newspaper Association; he served as president in 1968. He is active in the National Newspaper Association and the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors. His newspaper has won 383 national and state awards for excellence. Writes weekly syndicated column for papers in Kentucky and Midwest. He is a past president of Owingsville Chamber of Commerce and Bath County Industrial Foundation. He is active in numerous civic and youth activities. Metz exemplifies a “do-it-all-country editor.”
E. Eugene Pell has been president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty since 1985. With headquarters in Munich, this organization is responsible for broadcasting more than 1,000 hours per week in 22 languages to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. A native of Paducah, he is a graduate of Harvard University and holds a master’s degree in journalism from Boston University. He is a former director of the Voice of America. Pell spent more than 20 years in commercial broadcasting as a correspondent and news executive, including various positions with Westinghouse Broadcasting Company. He was an anchorman for WBZ- TV in Boston, a national political correspondent in Washington and chief of the foreign news service in London. He joined NBC News in 1978, serving as Moscow correspondent and Pentagon correspondent. He served three years as a U.S. Navy officer, including an assignment as program director for Armed Forces Radio. He was a Neiman Fellow at Harvard University between 1974 and 1975, and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard’s Russian Research Center in 1977. He has received numerous awards for news reporting.