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.