2019
Ewell Balltrip was an effective and persistent community journalist, often under difficult circumstances. He was a publisher of the Harlan Daily Enterprise, the Middlesboro Daily News and the State Gazette in Dyersburg, Tenn. He started at the Enterprise as an intern and returned to his hometown after graduating from Baylor University in 1972 with degrees in journalism and political science. He became editor in 1979, publisher in 1985, added the Middlesboro job for The New York Times Co. in 1989 and went to Dyersburg for it in 1990. He was known for covering the coal industry and the War on Poverty, earning the confidence of especially sensitive local audiences, commentary on local and broader issues, First Amendment advocacy, and many civic activities. He returned to Kentucky in 1996 to be executive director of the Kentucky Appalachian Commission for Gov. Paul Patton. In 2004 he founded the National Institute for Hometown Security in Somerset. He ran it until shortly before his passing in 2019.
Dana Canedy was the first woman, the first person of color and the youngest person to serve as administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, she was part of a New York Times team that won the 2001 Pulitzer for National Reporting for a series of stories, “How Race is Lived in America.” Born in Indianapolis, she grew up in a military family in Radcliff, near Fort Knox, and earned a degree in journalism from the University of Kentucky. Her career took her to The Palm Beach Post, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the Times, where she rose to the position of senior editor before accepting the Pulitzer job in 2017. She is the author of a best-seller, A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor. It grew out of an essay she wrote for the Times about the Iraq War death of her fiancé, First Sgt. Charles Monroe King, and the journal he left for their son.
Tom Caudill was an effective force for high-quality journalism, he was a mentor and talent scout for generations of young journalists in a 46-year career. A native of Franklin, he earned a journalism degree at Western Kentucky University and was editor of its College Heights Herald. He was a reporter and city editor at the Bowling Green Daily News and associate editor of The Gleaner in Henderson before going to The Lexington Herald in 1981 as assistant city/state editor. He retired as managing editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader in 2017 after 36 years at the newspaper. He played several key roles in the Kentucky Press Association, including president in 1999 and chair of its Legal Defense Fund since it was established in 1996. He was named KPA’s most valuable member in 2000. He was president of the Kentucky Associated Press Editors and serves on the boards of the College Heights Herald and the Kentucky Kernel at the University of Kentucky.
Corban Goble is a one-time printer’s devil who earned a doctorate in mass communications, he started working at the Berea College Press as a ninth grader for 11 cents an hour. Before graduation from the college, he worked for The Berea Citizen, was editor of the college newspaper and co-editor of the yearbook. After serving in the Navy during the Korean War, he returned to the press and the Citizen, both owned by the college. From 1964 to 1970 he was editor of the paper and superintendent of the press. He chaired the circulation division of the Kentucky Press Association and served on its executive committee. Shifting to academia, he earned a master’s degree in communications at the University of Kentucky and a doctorate at Indiana University, where his dissertation was on the American history of the Mergenthaler linotype machine. He taught journalism while at both schools, and for 11 years full-time and five years part-time at Western Kentucky University.
Bruce Johnson was an anchor and reporter for WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C., for more than four decades, he anchors the CBS affiliate’s 6 and 7 p.m. newscasts and covers politics and urban affairs as a reporter and has reported from many foreign capitals. A native of Louisville, he earned degrees in political science from Northern Kentucky University and in public affairs from the University of Cincinnati and began his career at Cincinnati’s WCPO-TV. He has won 22 Emmy Awards, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors Award, and its Ted Yates Award, for showing outstanding professional and personal qualities in TV news in the Washington-Baltimore region. He is a member of the Hall of Fame of the Washington Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the author of two books: Heart to Heart, about his and others’ comeback from heart attacks, and All or Nothing: The Victor Page Story, about a one-time National Basketball Association prospect.
Steve Lowery was a brilliant and tenacious journalist, he was a leader and innovator at his newspapers and in the Kentucky Press Association. A Detroit native, he earned a journalism degree from Murray State University and worked for the Benton Tribune-Courier and the Central Kentucky News-Journal in Campbellsville before becoming editor and publisher of The Lebanon Enterprise, then held the same titles at The Kentucky Standard in Bardstown, which started a local cable-news channel. He won many awards and was a mentor to many successful editors in Landmark Community Newspapers. As president of the KPA in 1994 he was the impetus behind creation of its Legal Defense Fund and an internship program for college students financed by revenues from the association’s advertising service. He helped rewrite state open-government laws, and in 2015 was posthumously awarded the James Madison Award for service to the First Amendment from the Scripps Howard First Amendment Center at the University of Kentucky. He died at the age of 54 in 2007.
Michael Wines has been a correspondent for The New York Times for more than 30 years, he is one of the most accomplished journalists from Kentucky. A native of Louisville, he earned a journalism degree at the University of Kentucky, where he was editor of the Kentucky Kernel, leading it to independence from the university and earning recognition as the nation’s top student journalist. After earning a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, he reported for The Lexington Herald, The Louisville Times and the National Journal, then was a reporter in the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times, where he was heavily involved in reporting on the Iran-Contra scandal. Joining the New York Times in 1988, he covered the Justice Department, the American intelligence community, the White House, the 1992 presidential campaign, Congress, the environment and, for nearly 15 years, news and life in Russia and surrounding states, southern Africa and China. He currently covers voting and other election-related issues.
2018
Rich Boehne started his newspaper career near the bottom rung and climbed all the way to the top. Boehne, a native of Ft. Thomas, sold subscriptions to the Cincinnati Post while a student at Highlands High School. He earned a degree in communications and journalism at Northern Kentucky University. He worked first as a part-time reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer, then worked for a group of suburban newspapers before joining the Post as a business reporter and editor. In 1988, he joined the Post’s parent corporation, the E.W. Scripps Co. just before the family-owned newspaper and broadcasting company went public. He rose through the ranks to become president and CEO in 2011. He stepped down in 2017 and remains chairman of the board. He helped co-found the Scripps Leadership Institute and led Scripps through the tumultuous era when news media were undergoing dramatic changes. He serves as a director of the Associated Press, a director of the Cincinnati Freestore Foodbank and as chairman of the Board of Regents of NKU. He received the First Amendment Award from the Associated Press, the Outstanding Alumnus Award from NKU as well as its prestigious Lincoln Award.
Jack Brammer has worked at the Lexington Herald Leader in its state capital bureau for 40 years. While he has won accolades for his reporting during the terms of nine Kentucky governors and 58 sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, his colleagues declare he has served as an outstanding mentor to the young reporters who have joined him in the bureau. Among those he taught are such Herald-Leader standouts as editor-in-chief Peter Baniak, deputy editor John Cheves, and editorial writer Jamie Lucke. Brammer, a native of Maysville, began his career at the Sentinel-News in Shelbyville. Two years later, he joined the Lexington Leader, which became part of the Herald-Leader. He has covered Frankfort ever since. Among his awards, he was part of the team that won the prestigious Seldon Ring in 1990 for the series, Cheating Our Children, which uncovered the economic inequities plaguing Kentucky’s schools. His nominators praised him for his fairness in covering decades of political stories.
Aileen Chambers Evans inherited the News-Democrat in Russellville in 1940 when her husband died at age 47. She poured her life into the community newspaper for the next 28 years before selling it. In her farewell column, she wrote, “I have written miles of copy of every kind and have walked miles of concrete in advertising.” But the only time her byline appeared in the newspaper was on that final column. Her original nomination was written by John Siegenthaler, the highly respected editor of the Tennesseanin Nashville and a staunch defender of the First Amendment. Siegenthaler recalled writing a story on Thanksgiving Day 1953 revealing that a Russellville woman who had disappeared and been declared dead was actually living in Texas. Mrs. Evans called her staff and they published an “extra” before dinner. Siegenthaler’s letter reports that the story made international news. Mrs. Evans and her staff, according to the letter, won more than 70 awards in the annual Kentucky Press Association contest. Her ownership of the newspaper was a family matter: children and grandchildren worked at the News-Democrat and went on to other news outlets. Mrs. Evans, who was born in 1895, graduated magna cum laude from Vanderbilt while playing for the women’s basketball team.
Warren Wheat spent 55 years in journalism, graduating from the University of Kentucky, where he worked on the Kentucky Kernel. First, there was a stop with the United States Air Force, where he served as a public information officer. His path led to the Winchester Sun; to the Lexington Leader as a city hall reporter while taking graduate classes; and then 14 years at the Cincinnati Enquirer covering Northern Kentucky and serving as chief of first the Columbus bureau and then the Washington bureau. He joined the Gannett News Service (1979-1984) as a regional reporter. He worked at USA Today for 14 years, serving as the first deputy Washington editor and then working on the editorial page. After two years as governance and national editor at The State in Columbia, S.C., he returned to Kentucky to edit The News-Enterprise in Elizabethtown. He retired in 2009 and now works for No-Labels, an organization based in Washington, D.C., that advocates for bipartisan policymaking.
Valerie Ellison Wright is a native of Lexington and a journalism graduate of the University of Kentucky. Her journalism has, in some ways, followed the career of her husband, Dr. George Wright, also a UK alum who recently stepped down after 14 years as president of Prairie View A&M University in Texas. After graduating in 1972, Mrs. Wright worked for the Louisville Times as a reporter covering neighborhoods. She covered city and county governments for the Durham Sun from 1974-1977. From 1977-1980, she worked at the Lexington Leader, reporting on schools and local courts. The following year, she worked as a copy editor and reporter for the Austin American Statesman. After being employed by the Texas Education Agency, she took a job at Texas Monthly Magazine as an assistant editor. She was promoted to associate editor and then research editor. From 2000 until her retirement in 2016, she was a fact-checker, serving again as associate editor and then research editor. In 1980, she was a member of the first class for Editing Program for Minority Journalists at the University of Arizona. In 2013, Texas Monthly won National Magazine Awards for stories it had published. In the magazine’s announcement, the editor praised Mrs. Ellison for her work fact-checking one of those stories.
Steve York, a graduate of Georgetown College, also logged many years in journalism. He started at WVLK AM and FM in Lexington, as a reporter/news director working with a five-person news team that covered Central Kentucky. From there, he moved to WAVE-TV in Louisville. He covered stories from Central and Western Kentucky for WAVE from Elizabethtown from 1978 to 1985. He provided WAVE viewers with celebrated coverage of the 1979 and 1983 gubernatorial races, as well as the 1981 coal strike. In 1985, WAVE named him assignment editor, and he was promoted to assistant news director in 1998, overseeing daily operations of the newsroom. He retired in 2011. He is the recipient of numerous journalism awards from the Kentucky Associated Press, the Kentucky Broadcasters Association and the Society of Professional Journalists.
2017
Tom Butler was the news director and then news vice president of Paducah’s WPSD-TV, he was widely respected as an example of strong, professional, accurate, fair and ethical journalism, and for the many outstanding journalists whose careers he fostered. At one time, the three major stations in Louisville all had anchors he had mentored. One of his lessons was, “Have an insatiable curiosity about the world around you. No subject should be off limits to the curious.” After graduating from Union University and working in radio in Jackson, Tenn., his hometown, he came to WPSD as an announcer/reporter in 1962 and stayed 35 years, developing encyclopedic knowledge of the station’s 50-county service area, expanding the news department (including a bureau in Carbondale, Ill.), maintaining a high level of trust among his audience, and doing weekly in-depth interviews with newsmakers, often getting them to break news. Known as a humble and caring servant leader. He died on March 31, 2017.
(Inducted jointly). Visionaries and change agents, Lewis Conn and William Matthews transformed how Kentucky weekly newspapers were published and provided good journalism to many communities. Conn was publisher of the Jefferson Reporterand Matthews publisher of the Shelby Sentinel in 1966, when they persuaded a diverse group of eight other weeklies to create one of the South’s first central printing plants, with Matthews as president and Conn as vice president. In 1968 they formed Newspapers Inc., which grew to 23 papers and four presses. In 1973 they sold it to Landmark Communications, which owns more Kentucky papers than any other publisher and is known for good journalism. They co-founded the Kentucky Weekly Newspaper Association; it spurred reforms in, and merged with, the Kentucky Press Association, of which Matthews was president in 1977. He built another group of weeklies in Northern Kentucky that he sold in 1977 and remained with until 1982. He publishes an award-winning magazine, Back Home in Kentucky, and has written, edited or published five books. Conn published the Kentucky Business Ledger, known for editorial integrity, in 1975-81. When he died in 1989, he was executive director of the Association of Area Business Publications in Annapolis, Md. A University of Louisville graduate, he founded the Reporter in 1953 after serving in the Army and working as a labor leader. Matthews, a University of Michigan graduate, bought the Sentinel in 1962 after serving in the Central Intelligence Agency. He published an autobiography, Editor, Actor, Ballplayer, Spy, in 2014. He died in 1989. Mr. Matthews passed in May 2017.
As publisher and editor of the Troublesome Creek Times in Hindman, which won more than 320 national and state awards during his 1980-2000 ownership, Ron Daley won more state press awards than any other Kentucky journalist in 1982-92. The paper, founded by Ron and Amy Daley and Mike and Frieda Mullins, was also known for its annual April Fool’s edition. He was president of the Kentucky Weekly Newspaper Association and won the East Kentucky Leadership Conference’s 1994 Media Award. He continues to write columns and teach journalism skills for The Holler, a social learning network. He is strategic partner lead for the Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative, on loan from the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, where he was founding director of the University Center of the Mountains. A native of North Dakota, he is a graduate of Berea College and Western Kentucky University and was a teacher and administrator at Alice Lloyd College.
As a full professor of journalism at the University of Kentucky, director of its Scripps Howard First Amendment Center, a thought leader in journalism ethics and former managing editor of The Kentucky Post in his hometown of Covington, Mike Farrell has had one of the most diverse and successful careers in Kentucky journalism. At The Post in 1977-1996, he was a reporter and editor before 11 years as managing editor, when the paper won many awards. In 1997 he began teaching at UK, where he earned master’s and doctoral degrees. He has been his college’s outstanding teacher and one of the nation’s outstanding faculty advisers; he served on the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Committee when it rewrote SPJ’s Code of Ethics, co-created SPJ’s Black Hole Award for violations of open-government laws; wrote and edited chapters in a leading book on media law and ethics, co-founded the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism and its NKYTribune; and writes for KyForward.com.
Mary D. Ferguson, an influential trailblazer for women journalists in Western Kentucky, was one of the state’s longest-serving newspaper writers, becoming the first female reporter for the Kentucky New Era in 1962, later becoming a columnist and writing until her death in 2016, finally by dictation due to brain cancer. She became the face and voice of the Hopkinsville daily, and never aspired to an editor’s or manager’s job, because she knew that reporter was the best job at any newspaper. But she was also an inspiration to many young journalists, the unofficial historian of the Pennyrile region, and a local expert on military news and Fort Campbell. A native of Todd County and graduate of Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn., she was society editor of the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle and news director for WHOP Radio, reporting live from the field. The New Era’s annual award for most valuable editorial-department employee is named for her.
Bill Francis, a versatile journalist in his hometown of Louisville for 42 years, was the first full-time business reporter for a Kentucky television station. His versatility showed through as he adapted to changing technologies and ownerships and won awards. After graduating from the University of Louisville in political science, he started as a clerk for WAVE in 1972 and worked his way into radio reporting and finally to TV. Moving to WLKY-TV as a political reporter in 1978, he became anchor of the morning news, which he also wrote and produced. In 1990 he joined the newly formed news department at WDRB-TV as an anchor, then developed the business reporting beat. Viewers told the station that he reported news they couldn’t get elsewhere; subjects of his stories acknowledged his accuracy and fairness; and his colleagues and competitors recognized him as a valuable servant to his viewers and his newsrooms, especially to the younger journalists he mentored.
A reporter on architecture in the Bluegrass, Betty Lee Mastin spent her career informing Kentuckians about their remarkable heritage and built environment. Her writing helped lead to the preservation of many historic structures in the region. Born in Midway and raised in Jessamine County, she is a Phi Beta Kappa journalism graduate of the University of Kentucky. She began reading proof for the Lexington Herald in 1944 and joined the paper full-time in 1950. She wrote more than 2,000 weekly features about homes in Central Kentucky, blending a scholar’s depth with a journalist’s eye for an interesting story. Her work fueled the local preservation movement, and at Herald management’s direction, she became an advocate for preservation and won awards for her work. She taught university seminars and wrote Lexington 1779: Pioneer Kentucky as Described by Early Settlers. After retiring from the Herald-Leader she continued to add to architectural archives of the state and UK.
Racing editor of the New York Herald Tribune from 1946 until his death in 1952, renowned colleagues hailed Joe Palmer as the best turf writer in newspapers. Born in Lexington, he earned degrees and taught English at the University of Kentucky, and nearly completed a doctorate at the University of Michigan. After summer work at The Blood-Horse in 1934, he was named associate editor and then business manager; he was executive secretary of the American Trainers Association in 1944-46. At the Herald Tribune, his style attracted readers beyond racing fans and was syndicated. He also worked for CBS, wrote for magazines and authored three racing books. An anthology of his work, This Was Racing, was compiled after his death by colleague Red Smith, who said that among racing writers, “There was never another in his time or before to compare with him.” The National Turf Writers and Broadcasters’ annual award for service to racing is named for him.
2016
Widely recognized as the leading journalistic authority on the Kentucky Derby, Jim Bolus wrote six books about America’s most famous race and co-wrote another. He also authored two other books, more than 200 magazine articles and several booklets about the racing industry. In 1972, he and Billy Reed wrote a series of investigative stories for The Courier-Journal and The Louisville Times on the industry, winning Sigma Delta Chi and National Headliners awards. After the Times closed in 1987, he was communications director for the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association and the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, worked spring meets at Keeneland Race Course, helped the Breeders’ Cup and was secretary of the National Turf Writers Association. A 1966 graduate of the University of Louisville and member of the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame, he died in 1997, the year he won the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters Walter Haight Award for Career Excellence. He died in 1997.
A native of Lexington and a graduate of Western Kentucky University, Tom Eblen began his career as an Associated Press correspondent in Tennessee and covered the nation’s largest case of insider bank fraud. As a regional reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he helped lead a Pulitzer Prize finalist team covering simultaneous prison riots in Louisiana and Georgia. He won a Best of Cox Award for his reporting on the collapse of Eastern Airlines and directed much of the Journal-Constitution’s business news coverage for six years. He returned home in 1998 and was managing editor of The Lexington Herald-Leader for 10 years. For two of those years, he also was acting executive editor. Under his leadership, the newspaper won many awards for news coverage and investigations. He asked to become a columnist in 2008 and made the assignment perhaps the best job in Kentucky journalism, covering a variety of often-overlooked topics and writing influential commentary.
As executive editor of Minnesota Public Radio, Mike Edgerly leads a 75-person staff that serves 45 stations and more than 9 million people. He was lead editor on a 2014 documentary about Catholic Church mishandling of sexual abuse that had a major impact on the church and won all major awards in broadcast journalism, his latest in a career filled with a sense of social justice. A native of Owensboro who attended Murray State University, he worked for WNBS in Murray, WNGO in Mayfield, WPAD in Paducah and WKED in Frankfort before joining WHAS in Louisville, where he co-produced award-winning documentaries about life in Eastern Kentucky and homelessness in Louisville, setting a leading example for a newsroom named the nation’s best in 1984. His work was recognized with a William Benton Fellowship at the University of Chicago. After WHAS was sold, he worked for Louisville’s WDRB-TV and joined MPR in 1991.
As deputy Detroit bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, Angelo Henderson won the 1999 feature writing Pulitzer Prize for his portrait of a druggist driven to violence after encountering an armed robber, illustrating the lasting effects of crime. He began a second career as a talk-show host for WCHB-AM, an ordained minister, co-founder of a crime-watch group, and owner of Angelo Ink, a freelance-writing, speaking and consulting business. He was known for his community service, engaging personality, wide network of sources and ability to cover people in all walks of life. When he died at age 51, Detroit’s mayor said few people had worked as tirelessly and passionately to improve the community. A Louisville native and 1985 University of Kentucky graduate, he also was a reporter for The Detroit News, The Courier-Journal and the St. Petersburg Times, and a leader in the National Association of Black Journalists.
In 30 years as adviser to the student newspaper and 25 years as adviser to the yearbook at Trinity High School in Louisville, where journalism is an honors course, Tony Lococo set an example for journalism education at the scholastic level. He guided the Echo newspaper and the Shamrock yearbook to many awards, started numerous journalists on significant careers, and made non-journalists better news consumers. He also co-moderated the school’s literary magazine, coached the speech team and chaired two academic departments. He was teacher of the year in the Archdiocese of Louisville in 1986, Greater Louisville High School Press Association Adviser of the Year in 1993, and winner of journalism-education awards from Western Kentucky University and the University of Kentucky in 2013 and 2015, respectively. A secondary-education and English graduate of Morehead State University, he also received two master’s degrees from Indiana University Southeast.
Partners in life and journalism for more than 40 years, Charles Roger and Donna Buckles Stinnett met at Western Kentucky University, their alma mater, then worked for The Leitchfield Gazette and other papers before finding their home in Henderson at The Gleaner, where for most of the time she was features editor and he was business editor. They also wrote stories and columns, became deeply ingrained in Henderson’s civic life, and were named Distinguished Citizens of the Year in 2015. They won the William R. Burleigh Award for Community Service from the Scripps Howard Foundation and the Lewis Owens Award for Community Service from the Kentucky Press Association and the Lexington Herald-Leader. Chuck, a native of Lexington, won a National Press Photographers Association award and also worked at The (Somerset) Commonwealth Journal. Donna, a native of Caneyville, was editor of WKU’s award-winning Talisman yearbook and worked at the Glasgow Daily Times.
Bill Straub was the Frankfort bureau chief of the Kentucky Post for 11 years. A graduate of the University of Kentucky, he worked at newspapers in Corbin and Paris before becoming editor of the Georgetown News and Times. Joining the Post in 1979, he did groundbreaking reporting on the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire and trial. He became the Washington correspondent for the Kentucky and Cincinnati Posts in 1994, then White House and political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. Today he writes a political column for KyForward.com and the NKYTribune.com.
As editor-publisher of The Anderson News in Lawrenceburg, Don White published photos of convicted drunken drivers as a deterrent. DUIs declined 37 percent from 1999 to 2000, and the National Commission Against Drunk Driving gave him an award. He helped spur school consolidation but also restoration of a one-room school, one of several civic activities. In Kentucky Press Association contests, his paper won at least one first place in every category, including nine for community service and eight for general excellence, and he won at least one first in 15 categories. He was news editor of The Commonwealth Journal in his hometown of Somerset and wire editor of The Lexington Leader. Missing contact with the public, he joined Landmark Community Newspapers as editor of the Casey County News in 1976 and served at the Lawrenceburg Paper from 1978 to 2006. He then traveled the state writing syndicated feature stories. He is author of Paper Boy: Giving His Heart to Journalism.
2015
Steve Burgin is an investigative reporter and weekend anchor in a more than 30-year career with WLKY in Louisville. He has won five Emmys, the Scripps Howard National Award for Investigative Reporting, a regional Edward R. Murrow award, and numerous Metro Journalism and Associated Press awards. He was the first Kentucky broadcast journalist to receive the Silver Circle Award for lifetime achievement from the Ohio Valley Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He also worked at CNN, Atlanta; WFAA, Dallas; WTVF, Nashville; WBIR, Knoxville; and KCTV, San Angelo, Texas.
Judy Jenkins was a reporter and columnist for The Gleaner in Henderson, Ky. from 1963 until her retirement in 2007, after which she continued to write occasionally as a freelancer and guest columnist until her death in 2013. She won numerous honors in KPA competitions, including eight first-place awards for Best Column. She received the Barry Bingham Award from the Kentucky Psychiatric Association seven times in recognition of her “exceptional efforts to bring information on mental illness to the people of Kentucky.” She was also honored by the Cabinet for Human Resources, the Green River Regional Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board and the Henderson Mayor’s Committee on Employment of the Disabled for her work on behalf of people with disabilities. A graduate of the University of Kentucky Northwest Center, now Henderson Community College, she was given its’ Distinguished Alumni Award posthumously.
A television executive since 1993, Jeffrey A. Marks is currently president and general manager of WDBJ Television in Roanoke, Virginia. His career in broadcast news began in 1971 as news director at WBKY (now WUKY) at the University of Kentucky. He was a reporter for WVLK and WLAP radio stations in Lexington, then joined WHAS in Louisville, first as a radio reporter, then an editorial producer for both television and radio, and then senior news producer for WHAS television. He then joined WJLA television in Washington, DC as executive news producer. From there, he went to the Maine Broadcasting System, beginning as a news director with WCSH television in Portland and then becoming station manager before moving into executive management with WLBZ television in Bangor. While in Kentucky, he covered the 1974 tornados, the 1975 integration unrest and the 1976 Scotia mine disasters, among other key stories. He is a graduate of the University of Kentucky.
Director of the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement at Northern Kentucky University since 2008, Mark Neikirk was managing editor of The Cincinnati Post/The Kentucky Post during the paper’s final years. Prior to being named managing editor, he worked at the Post for 28 years in positions of increasing responsibility, including assistant managing editor when the two newspapers’ newsrooms were merged in 1995, a member of the newsroom management team for The Kentucky Post (night city editor, state editor, city editor), and a reporter covering all key news beats. He began his career at The Kentucky Post as an intern while in graduate school at the University of Kentucky. During his tenure at The Kentucky Post, he led repeated open records and open meetings challenges. He graduated from the University of Kentucky with a degree in history.
An award-winning photographer for The Associated Press in Kentucky for more than 25 years, Ed Reinke died in 2011 from injuries suffered while on assignment at the Kentucky Speedway. He was AP’s lead photographer for critical events in Kentucky history, including the 2006 Comair crash in Lexington, the 1988 Carrollton bus crash, the 1989 Wheatcroft coal mine disaster, and the 1989 workplace shooting at the Standard Gravure printing plant. In addition to Kentucky stories, he covered Super Bowls, World Series championships, NCAA Final Fours, Olympics, golf championships, the Indy 500, Hurricane Andrew, and President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration. He covered every Kentucky Derby from 1988 through 2011. He won numerous awards from the AP Sports Editors, including the 1992 Thomas V. DiLustro award for excellence in sports photography. He was born in Indiana and attended Indiana University.
Landon Willis set a national example for editorial leadership in a small, rural county as owner of the McLean County News in 1946-72. He helped bring a hospital, factories and a dam to Calhoun. His strong editorial stands included support for the civil-rights plan of the 1948 Democratic platform and John F. Kennedy for president in 1960. He believed the editorial page was open to any topic, and he often opined on state and national issues, which cost him badly needed advertising; his wife’s teaching job helped to support them and six sons, one of whom, Clyde, edited the paper briefly. In 1963 he was the subject of “Vanishing Breed,” an ABC-TV documentary premised on the declining number of weekly papers. A graduate of Kentucky Wesleyan College, he died in 1998 and won the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity from the Institute of Rural Journalism and Community Issues in 2014.
2014
Elizabeth Hansen was a champion of community journalism and media ethics through research and teaching at Eastern Kentucky University from 1987 to 2014. She was named a Foundation Professor in 2008, the highest recognition awarded by the university. She has prepared hundreds of journalism students for careers through courses that include real-world experiences and evaluation and research for numerous Kentucky community newspapers. EKU's student newspaper, The Progress, won numerous awards under her advising leadership. She has been active in the Society of Professional Journalists (regional director on national board), Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (head of Community Journalism Interest Group), Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues (chair of Steering Committee), International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, Kentucky Press Association, National Newspaper Association and Huck Boyd National Center for Community Media at Kansas State University. She earned degrees from University of Arkansas (B.A., journalism), Iowa State University (M.S., journalism and mass communication), and University of Kentucky (Ph.D., communication).
As political and investigative reporter for Louisville's WHAS-TV, Mark Hebert won two regional Emmy Awards for breaking the news of Gov. Paul Patton's 2002 sex scandal and reporting that the derailment of a train carrying Agent Orange in Horse Cave, Ky., apparently led to higher-than-normal rates of cancer in the area. The station won an Edward R. Murrow Award for its coverage of the Patton scandal. He worked at WHAS from 1987 to 2009 after reporting for Lexington's WLEX-TV, the Kentucky Radio Network and Frankfort's WKED Radio, where he also served as news director. He began his broadcast career at WKCT/WDNS-FM in Bowling Green while still a student at Western Kentucky University. In 2002, Louisville Magazine and LEO Weekly both named him Best TV Reporter in the market. The Louisville League of Women Voters named him Political Reporter of the Year in 2007. He joined the University of Louisville in 2009 as director of media relations.
An Owensboro native who first pursued an art career at Brescia College, David E. McBride started in the newspaper business with the Kingsport Times-News in Tennessee in the mid-1950s. After working for the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, WFIE-TV in Evansville, Ind., and the Henderson Gleaner, he became editor of the Ohio County Times-News in Hartford in 1971. He served as editor for 25 years, was semi-retired for 15 years, and returned as editor in July 2011 at the age of 79. He is best known for his column, "Little Bit of Everything," and was active in the West Kentucky Press Association, serving as president. He began the Ohio County Octoberfest in 1986. Funds raised through the event supported the Times-News Children's Fund, which distributes toys, caps, gloves and winter coats annually to deserving children. He received the Edwards Templin Award for community service, given by the Lexington Herald-Leader at the Kentucky Press Association convention, in 1989.
Born in Virginia but raised in Eastern Kentucky, Lee Mueller covered President Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 visit to Inez as a young reporter with the Ashland Daily Independent. He also wrote for The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch and Citizen-Journal, the Greenfield, Ohio, Daily Times, the Lexington Herald and the Roanoke Times. As a columnist for the Newspaper Enterprise Association, he wrote a regular column on topics of his choice, as well as writing sports stories. He became an editor at Golf Magazine in 1971 and won first place in the U.S. Golf Writers Association of America's writing competition in 1973. He returned home to become the Lexington Herald-Leader's Eastern Kentucky bureau reporter in 1980 and continued in that role until his retirement in 2007. He contributed to a 1989 series on schools that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. His work frequently exposed the misdeeds of Appalachian politicians and coal operators.
During 30 years at The Cincinnati Post, 1997-2007, Mike Philipps served in roles of increasing importance: assistant city editor, news editor, metropolitan editor and assistant managing editor. He was named editor of the Post and its sister newspaper, The Kentucky Post, in 2001. As editor of a paper facing doom from a joint operating agreement, he refocused its limited resources on Northern Kentucky, kept the Post vigorous until the end, and shared with it the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce's 2007 Unity Award for helping bring the region together. He held a wide range of leadership positions in the community and served as secretary of the Kentucky Humanities Council and a member of the Kentucky Commission on Philanthropy. In 2008, he was named president and CEO of the Scripps Howard Foundation. He graduated from Virginia Military Institute and served as an Army captain in Vietnam, to which he returned in 2000 and wrote a retrospective story about its changes.
Born in Louisville in 1937, Hunter S. Thompson died at Woody Creek, Colo., in 2005. He began his career as a sportswriter in the Air Force. He is best known as the father of what he dubbed "gonzo journalism," a subjective style with first-person narrative, including personal experiences that often become central to the story. His first gonzo story was "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved," in the June 1970 Scanlan's Monthly. He wrote for national and international publications, most notably Rolling Stone, which gave him the largely honorary title of national affairs editor. The magazine published his "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream," which became a book, as did his 1972 presidential campaign reporting for the magazine, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail." Other books include "The Rum Diary," "The Proud Highway" and "Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs."
2013
Ralph W. Gabbard improved broadcast journalism as manager of WKYT-TV in Lexington and founder of WYMT-TV in Hazard. A native of Berea, he started working in radio during high school, became a station manager, then joined Lexington’s WVLK. When station owner Garvice Kincaid bought WKYT, Gabbard moved to the TV station, becoming sales manager and then, at 29, the youngest manager of a Top 100 network affiliate. He expanded its news department, which gained top ratings and the largest Kentucky news audience of any station, and supported Kentucky Educational Television’s public-affairs programming. He led the station’s purchase of a small station in Hazard and turned it into the leading news source in Eastern Kentucky. He served as TV board chairman of the National Association of Broadcasters and chairman of CBS affiliates and was CEO of Gray Broadcasting at the time of his death in 1996.
Bill Goodman is the primary public face of public-affairs programs at Kentucky Educational Television, a state-owned network that is a national leader in independent public-affairs programming. He worked in radio news and sales at Bowling Green’s WKCT while attending Western Kentucky University, then joined WLAC-TV (later WTVF-TV) in Nashville, becoming news director. As news director at Houston’s KPRC-TV, he established the department’s first investigative unit, leading it to national awards. After returning to Kentucky to work in a family business, he joined KET in 1996 as host and managing editor of Kentucky Tonight, a weekly issues-discussion program, and in 2005 began One to One, a weekly interview show, and Education Matters, a monthly report on education initiatives in the state. He is a moderator and reporter on the network’s legislative and election programs. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction from Spalding University in 2012.
Dan Modlin set high standards for public radio news programs as news director of WKYU-FM at Western Kentucky University from 1990 to 2013, earning the station national respect. His coverage included education, consumer protection, mental health, prescription drug abuse, child abuse and neglect, colorectal cancer and a 30-minute documentary about President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which is on file at the Truman Presidential Library and won a first-place award from Public Radio News Directors Inc. in 2011. He won many other awards from PRNDI and The Associated Press in Kentucky. A songwriter, musician and native of Indiana, he earned a bachelor’s degree in social science and English and a master’s degree in history at Ball State University and worked for the Indianapolis-based Rural Radio Network from 1973 to 1990.
John Nelson was a leader for openness in government and quality in journalism during his career at weekly and daily newspapers. Executive editor of Advocate Communications, which includes The Advocate-Messenger in Danville and The Winchester Sun, dailies of which he is editor. As president of the Kentucky Press Association in 2004, he oversaw the state’s first open-records audit and spearheaded a lawsuit to open juvenile courts and was named KPA’s most valuable member in 2006. He also served as president of the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. A native of Mayfield who grew up in Valley Station, he was assistant editor of The Citizen Voice in Estill County, then worked in the coal industry and completed his degree at Eastern Kentucky University, returned to the Citizen Voice & Times in 1986, and was editor and part owner of Pulaski Week in Somerset from 1987 through 1996.
Marla Ridenour helped diversify male-dominated sports journalism and shattered glass ceilings for women, eventually becoming sports columnist for the Akron Beacon Journal. A native of Louisville, in 1975 she was the first woman sports editor of the student newspaper at Eastern Kentucky University, where she earned degrees in journalism and marketing but also took classes in coaching baseball and football and was the first female reporter admitted to the football locker room. She reported for the Lexington Herald, the Dayton Daily News and The Columbus Dispatch, sometimes as the only woman on a beat, including the Cleveland Browns. She has helped advance the careers of many other female reporters, some of them very well known, and received many awards from groups such as the Associated Press Sports Editors, the Pro Football Writers of America and the Golf Writers Association of America.
2012
"Chandler Jr. was born on Aug. 8, 1929 and spent part of his childhood in the governor’s mansion and went on to graduate from the Darlington School in Rome, Ga., and the University of Kentucky. He was a U.S. Air Force veteran of the Korean War era. For many years he owned and published The Woodford Sun, which his father bought in the early 1940s. He was the last living offspring of the former Kentucky governor.He was selected for induction into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2012.
According to his Hall of Fame information, Chandler, who took over as publisher of the Woodford paper in 1957, was one of the longest-tenured publishers in Kentucky history.
One nominator wrote that "his sustained contributions are rare.”
The Hall of Fame said that his “Happy Landings” column "showed his editorial leadership through the weekly newspaper’s reliable, well-edited and comprehensive news pages. He has included aggressive coverage of planning, zoning and development issues, a major focus of public concern in Woodford County during most of his tenure.
"Ben’s paper publishes more public records than most in Kentucky and reaches a high percentage of households in the county. The paper, owned since 1940 by the family of A.B. “Happy” Chandler, then U.S. senator, who names his son – a Korean War veteran and University of Kentucky graduate – publisher during second term as governor."
Another nominator called Ben Chandler “a true institution in the community.”
Chandler died in 2016.
D.J. Everett III was a radio broadcaster and businessman who always placed a strong emphasis on news coverage. WKDZ-FM, Cadiz, was honored as “Small Market Radio Station of the Year” by the National Association of Broadcasters, the only Kentucky radio station ever to receive that honor. WHVO, Cadiz, also has received numerous awards from national, state, and local organizations, including awards for both news coverage and community service. D.J. is a 1969 journalism and political science graduate of the University of Kentucky; he was news director of the student station, WBKY. He was one of the first students to intern with WAVE Radio and TV in Louisville. D.J. began his professional career as news director at WHOP in Hopkinsville; he was the first Kentucky news director to win five Associated Press awards in one year. He bought WKDZ and WHVO in the 1990s. D.J. is a two-term president of Community Broadcasters Association. He died in 2015
Chip Hutcheson became publisher of The Princeton Leader in 1976, following his parents’ retirement. Chip remained publisher of the paper until 1992, when the paper was bought by its competitor, Kentucky New Era of Hopkinsville. They merged into The Times Leader and became a biweekly; this paper was the first Kentucky weekly with a website in 1996. Chip writes editorials and a weekly column called “Chip off the Old Block,” which has appeared every Wednesday since 1976. He served as sports editor of the Kentucky Kernel and is a University of Kentucky graduate; he was sports editor of New Era for six years. He currently serves on New Era’s board and is publisher of The Eagle Post, its weekly newspaper for the Fort Campbell area. Chip served several terms as director of Kentucky Press Association, was president in 2010; he is winner of numerous KPA awards. He was the At-large director of National Newspaper Association, 2005-11, and regional director for Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. He is active in many civic organizations, and on the board of Western Recorder, the newspaper of Kentucky Baptist Convention.
Bill Luster was a photojournalist at The Courier-Journal from 1969 to 2011, part of that time as Director of Photography. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, one in 1976 as part of the staff covering court-ordered busing and its ramifications, and the second in 1989 as part of the team covering the national’s deadliest bus and drunk-driving crash, at Carrollton, Ky. He was President of the National Press Photographers Association in 1993-94; he received NPPA’s 2000 Joseph Costa Award for innovative leadership. He directed NPPA’s Flying Short Course for 12 years; he chaired the NPPA-Nikon Documentary Sabbatical program, was five-time Kentucky Photographer of the Year; and was named Visual Journalist of the Year in 2000 by Western Kentucky University, his alma mater. Bill started his career as a teenager at the Glasgow Daily Times in his hometown. Received Joseph Sprague Award from NPPA in 2010, given for lifetime achievement and dedication to the craft of photojournalism.
Robert H. "Doc" McGaughey association with the Murray State Journalism and Mass Communications Department began as an undergraduate staff member of The Murray State News. Following a tour of duty in Vietnam, he returned to Murray State as an advisor to the student paper and became the first student to graduate from Murray's Journalism master's degree program. He earned his doctorate in mass communications at Ohio University before returning again to the Murray State Journalism and Mass Communications Department as a faculty member.
In 1974, he became chairman of the newly formed department; formerly known as Journalism and Radio/TV. During his years as chair, the department grew from 45 majors to more than 400 and received accreditation from the ACEJMC. At the time of his passing in 2019, McGaughey was professor emeritus and retired chairman of Murray State University’s Department of Journalism and Mass Communications.
McGaughey received several recognitions and awards for his work at Murray State. In 1984, he was named Max Carmen Outstanding Teacher of the Year by the Student Government Association. He was named Distinguished Professor of the Year by the Murray State Alumni Association in 1990.
He was selected eight times to attend the International Radio and Television Society (IRTS) faculty-industry seminar in New York City. In 1987, he was named the Frank Stanton Fellow of the IRTS as the distinguished broadcast educator in the U.S. He served for ten years as executive director of the West Kentucky Press Association, and two terms as education representative on the KPA board of directors. In 2012, he was inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame. In 2020, Doc McGaughey was awarded posthumously with the Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest honor given by the Murray State University Alumni Association.
Michael York was a 1974 journalism graduate of University of Kentucky, where he was political writer for the Kentucky Kerneland broke two national stories as a student covering Democratic Senate George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign. Mike worked part-time as a reporter for Durham Morning Herald while attending law school at University of North Carolina. He helped put out first edition of “The Legal Times” in Washington, DC, then he joined the staff of the Lexington Herald. Mike has won awards from Kentucky Press Association and shared in the 1980 E.W. Scripps First Amendment Award. He won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting with Jeffrey Marx for a series of stories on NCAA rules violations in UK basketball and at other schools. Mike moved to Washington in 1983 as Lexington Herald-Leader’s correspondent, then to The Washington Postin 1987 as investigative reporter. He formed a law firm, Wehner & York, in 1994, which represents journalists, bloggers and news websites, among other clients.
2011
Bill Bartleman reported for The Paducah Sun from 1972 to 2010; he was a chief reporter and columnist on government and politics for 35 years. He helped direct paper’s coverage and chronicled West Kentucky’s gradual, historic shift away from Democratic roots. He attended most sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, covering both regional and state politicians. Helped the rest of the state understand relatively isolated West Kentucky through his writing and television appearances. He demonstrated unswerving dedication to the public interest. He is a native of Chalfont, Pa., and a 1971 journalism graduate of Murray State University. He taught journalism and advised student newspaper at MSU, 1981-1985. He became director of community relations for Mid-Continent University in 2010. He is the winner of the Lewis Owens Community Service Award from the Kentucky Press Association in 2011.
Jackie Hays Bickel was a popular television news anchor for 31 years, in two Kentucky cities and America’s fourth largest city. Native of Paris, Tenn., she began career at WPSD-TV, Paducah, while still a student at Murray State University in 1978. She anchored at WHAS-TV, Louisville, from 1980 to 1985; KYW-TV, Philadelphia from 1985 to 1988; and WAVE-TV, Louisville from 1988 to 2009. She covered countless major stories from the scene. She won an Emmy Award for a special on the tragedy of the 2009 Kentucky Derby and covered the MOVE - Philadelphia Police disaster. She was voted favorite news anchor by readers of Louisville magazine in “Best of Louisville” contest 16 times.
Robert Carter was a longtime publisher of Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville and a major player in passing strong open-government laws. Native of Mount Vernon, Ga., he joined New Era as advertising salesman in 1953 and became ad manager in 1958, business manager in 1968 and the paper’s top executive in 1969. He is a fiercely competitive, but helpful neighbor for nearby publishers. As board member and officer of Kentucky Press Association, he pushed for higher KPA ethical standards. He used political skills to help win passage of the state Open Meetings Act in 1974 and Open Records Act in 1976, the year he was KPA president. He secured the future of one of the state’s last two family-owned daily newspapers through best practices and innovation. He retired as publisher in 1997, and continued as board chairman until 2003.
Albert Dix was a publisher, for nearly 35 years of The State Journal in Frankfort, both a state-capital newspaper and a community newspaper, owned by Ohio-based Dix Communications. He was a Republican in a Democratic town who kept news columns fair, held officials and institutions accountable, and gave free rein to editors and editorial writers. He was a confidant of state officials and community leaders, but also a reporter’s publisher; he mentored several who went on to successful careers at major papers. The State Journal founded Kentucky Book Fair in 1981. Native of Ravenna, Ohio, and graduate of Dennison University, he served in the U.S. Army Intelligence. He died in 2009.
Tom Loftus was a longtime Frankfort bureau chief and investigative reporter for The Courier-Journal. He was a prolific user of open-records laws to reveal foibles and felonies in state government, campaign finance and intersections thereof. His series on suspicious contributions in 1991 race for governor led to indictments and convictions, and overhaul of state campaign-finance laws. He developed and maintained extensive database on contributions to Kentucky politicians; he co-authored a series revealing extent and cost of blacktopping monopolies. He led coverage on scene of the Carrollton bus crash in 1988 and worked on the aftermath, helping C-J staff win the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. He is a native of Cincinnati and journalism graduate of The Ohio State University. He was a reporter for The Kentucky Post, from 1976 to 1984, ending in Frankfort; he was the C-J Indianapolis bureau chief from 1984 to 1986. He is the winner of the James Madison Award from the University of Kentucky’s Scripps Howard First Amendment Center in 2008.
Ed Shadburne helped bring Kentucky broadcast journalism into the modern era. As secretary-treasurer of Kentucky Broadcasters Association for five years in 1960s, he built KBA to the level where it could pay an executive director. He built a local news operation of Louisville’s WLKY-TV as station’s vice president and general manager between 1963 and 1970. He was executive vice president and general manager of WHAS-TV-AM-FM, Louisville from 1970 to 1975; he improved operations and won numerous awards. He was vice president and general manager of General Electric-owned TV and radio stations in Nashville, in the early 1980s. He is a native of Louisville and Navy veteran of World War II. He began his career at WHIR Radio, Danville, while attending Centre College. He worked at stations in Tampa and Fort Myers, Fla., Paintsville, Ky., Mobile, Ala., and Colorado Springs. He owned and operated WCPM in Cumberland, Ky., and WHAN in Haines City, Fla. He managed WLOU in his hometown of Louisville. He left retirement in 1996-97 to oversee the merger of the Louisville public TV station with KET.
2010
Neil Budde is an online news pioneer. He was president and chief product officer at DailyMe Inc., online news aggregator. He was previously general manager at Yahoo! News, founding editor and publisher of The Wall Street Journal Online and deputy editorial director for Dow Jones News/Retrieval. He moved to online after editing and reporting work with the Courier-Journal, USA Today and The Richmond Times-Dispatch. He has received awards for business journalism and use of technology in journalism. He holds degrees from Western Kentucky University and the University of Louisville.
Al Cross has served as a director of UK’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. He spent more than 26 years as a reporter for The Courier-Journal, the last 15½ as political writer; and continues the column fortnightly. His coverage ranged from presidential to local elections and included all facets of state government. He received numerous awards, including a share of the Pulitzer Prize won by C-J staff in 1989 for coverage of the nation's deadliest bus crash. He grew up in Albany, Ky., started writing for Clinton County News at 11 and announcing on WANY at 13. He appeared on KET’s “Comment on Kentucky” at 21. He is a graduate of Western Kentucky University. He is editor-manager of weekly papers in Monticello and Leitchfield, and assistant managing editor in Russellville. He was national president of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2001-2002, the only Kentuckian to hold that post.
Former anchor at WLKY NewsChannel 32 in Louisville, Liz Everman continues to work on weekly “Wednesday’s Child” segment, a special reports focused on finding adoptive homes for children. She has helped almost 3,000 special-needs children find homes. “Wednesday’s Child” has won more than 50 awards, including Adoptive Exchange Association Award for best segment of its kind in the country. She has been honored by the United States Congress for her work with adoption and was named an Adoption Angel by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption in 2001. She previously worked for Lexington stations WLEX-TV and WTVQ-TV. Born in South Shore, she graduated from Morehead State University.
Jack Lyne has spent 25 years with Atlanta-based Site Selection, a business magazine focused on corporate location strategies. He served as editor-in-chief for 17 years before becoming executive editor of interactive publishing in 2000. Earlier in his 40-year career, he wrote and delivered on-air news commentaries for CNN and Kentucky Educational Television. He has won numerous awards, including two Grand Awards in annual APEX Award competitions, as well as The Golden Lamp, the Association of Educational Publishers’ highest honor. Born in Russellville, he received both a B.A. and M.A. in communications from the University of Kentucky. He died in 2011.
James Fredrick Paxton ended his career as Chairman of the Board of the Paxton Media Group; he previously served as president of the company, publisher of The Paducah Sun and president of WPSD-TV. Over time, the Paxton family's media company owned 29 daily newspapers and dozens of weeklies in nine states. He served four terms as chairman of the NBC Affiliates Board, a three-year term as chairman of the Maximum Service Telecasters, and was president of the Kentucky Broadcasters Association. With his wife, he established a million-dollar fund called the "McCracken County Community Career Endowment" to improve the lives of African Americans in the Paducah area. He was born in Paducah and graduated from Notre Dame. He passed away in 2006.
Jim Phillips has served as news director at WGOPH-WUGO radio in Grayson. He has been on air for 40 years, reporting local news daily. He is the winner of numerous AP awards including five Best Newscast awards; the station has received four NAB National Crystal Radio Awards for community service during his tenure. He has also received numerous awards from Kentucky Broadcasters Association for coverage of breaking news and for community service reporting. He was previously editor of weekly Grayson Journal-Enquirer, also wrote for Courier-Journal and Ashland Daily Independent. He was born in Grayson and attended the University of Kentucky.
Lois Ogden Sutherland founded the journalism program at what became Northern Kentucky University. She spent six decades as a newspaper reporter, high school teacher, journalism professor, student newspaper adviser and freelance writer. She began her career with the Cincinnati Times-Star as a sports reporter, one of the earliest women to do locker room interviews. She joined what was then Northern Kentucky State College in 1971 as a charter member of the faculty. She was the first full-time journalism instructor there and founding adviser of the student newspaper. She was known to colleagues as a “female Lou Grant.” She retired in 1987, but continued to supervise journalism interns. She was born in California in Campbell County, graduated from University of Kentucky and received her master’s from Xavier.