A keeper of the Bingham family's ethos of newspapers as a public trust, Keith L. Runyon was the last member of their editorial board to retire. Born in Louisville, he also grew up in Lexington and Knoxville. He joined The Courier-Journal in 1969 as an obituary clerk. After graduation from the University of Louisville, he was a feature writer and reporter. In 1977 he joined the editorial board and entered the U of L Law School, earning a degree and becoming part-time counsel to the Bingham Companies while staying on the board. After the 1986 sale to Gannett Co., he became first editor of The Forum pages, then editorial-page and opinion-page editor, and finally editorial page director, retiring in 2012, the year he won a Sigma Delta Chi Award. He was also a book editor in 1989-2012 and was a leader in the National Conference of Editorial Writers.