KNOXVILLE — An award-winning editor and a long-time newspaper publisher have been selected for posthumous induction into the Tennessee Newspaper Hall of Fame November 4.
J. Zollie Howard and Richard F. Knight will join fifty-three other journalists and newspaper executives in the hall of fame. The induction ceremony will be held at the Knoxville Marriott hotel.
The Tennessee Press Association and the University of Tennessee co-sponsor the hall of fame, which was founded in 1966. It is located in UT’s Communications Building.
Howard had a forty-six-year career as a Tennessee journalist. He began work in 1907 as a printer’s devil at the Jackson County Sentinel in Gainesboro, Tennessee, setting type by hand, reading proofs, inking the flatbed presses, and delivering the papers three times a week. After serving in World War I and earning a bachelor’s degree in English from UT Knoxville in 1924, Howard spent fifteen years at the News Sentinel in Knoxville, rising from reporter to city editor and news editor. Later he worked for the Memphis Press Scimitar as managing editor, associate editor, and editorial page editor.
Howard twice served as director of the Tennessee Press Association and was an original trustee of the Meeman Foundation, which funds journalism scholarships and faculty fellowships at UT and supports the annual UT–TPA state press contest.
Knight owned and published the Livingston Enterprise and Jackson County Sentinel from 1959 to 2000. He was active in TPA for more than forty years, serving one term as TPA president and serving on the boards of directors of TPA and the Tennessee Press Service.
The Tennessee Newspaper Hall of Fame honors those who have made an outstanding contribution to newspaper journalism in Tennessee or elsewhere in the world. The hall of fame is jointly administered by TPA and the UT Knoxville School of Journalism and Electronic Media. Selection of honorees is made every two years by a committee of past TPA presidents.
For more information on the hall of fame, visit http://www.tnpress.com/halloffame.html.
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C O N T A C T :
Peter Gross (865-974-4063, pgross@utk.edu)
Robyn Gentile (865-584-5761, rgentile@tnpress.com)
Charles Primm (865-974-5180, primmc@utk.edu)