DePauw Media Wall of Fame

KENNETH C. HOGATE '18

Inducted: DECEMBER 3, 1993

Kenneth Hogate, 1918 DePauw graduate, translated the journalistic courage and business integrity he saw in his father, who was a small town Indiana newspaper editor, into an eminently successful, 26-year effort to transform The Wall Street Journal into one of the nation’s most respected newspapers.

BERNARD KILGORE ‘29

Inducted: DECEMBER 3, 1993

Bernard Kilgore, 1929 DePauw graduate, was credited upon his death at the age of 59 on November 14, 1967, with being “the man who changed The Wall Street Journal from a small financial newspaper into the nation’s only national daily.” In 38 years with The Journal, he revolutionized its news coverage, built its circulation, expanded its technology and widened its profitability.

SAL F. MARINO ‘42

Inducted: DECEMBER 2, 1994

Sal F. Marino, a 1942 DePauw graduate, is the uncontested champion of editorial excellence in the business press. As chairman and chief executive officer of Penton Publishing, he produced a series of publications which has become the most honored in the industry.

RICHARD MCLOUGHLIN ‘50

Inducted: DECEMBER 1, 1995

During a 34-year career with Reader’s Digest Association, 1950 DePauw graduate Richard McLoughlin rose to President and Chief Operating Officer of the Reader’s Digest Association. In 1990, Richard McLoughlin was named Publisher of the Year by the Magazine Publishers of America.

EUGENE C. PULLIAM ‘10 

Inducted: DECEMBER 1, 1995

During his long career, Eugene C. Pulliam owned and operated 51 newspapers – as many as 23 at one time – in eight states. Today, the newspaper company he built includes The Arizona Repuiblic, The Phoenix Gazette, The Indianapolis Star-New, The Muncie Press, Topics Newspapers, Noblesville Ledger and Vincennes Sun-Commercial.

EUGENE S. PULLIAM ‘35 

Inducted: DECEMBER 1, 1995

Upon graduating from DePauw University in 1935, Eugene S. Pulliam worked for United Press International in Chicago, Detroit and Buffalo for two years and then joined WTRE Radio in Indianapolis as news editor in 1937. After World War II, Pulliam worked at both The Indianapolis Star and The Indianapolis News before being promoted to assistant publisher of both newspapers in 1962. In1975, he became publisher of the Star and the News and in 1979 also became president of Phoenix Newspapers Incorporated which publishes The Arizona Republic and The Phoenix Gazette. Indianapolis Newspapers, Inc. also owns newspapers in Muncie, Noblesville and Vincennes, Indiana. 

JOHN W. BURKHART ‘28 

Inducted: May 9, 1997

After he had achieved success in business and politics, John Burkhart and his partner, St. Louis businessman Mark Vittert, unhappy with local news coverage of business, co-founded the Indianapolis Business Journal. The success of the journal prompted the start of other business weeklies in St. Louis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Baltimore. In 1990, Burkhart became chairman of CEO Magazine.

W. D. MAXWELL ‘36

Inducted: May 9, 1997

Once described as an imaginative and innovative editor, fertile in ideas and energetic in execution, W.D. Maxwell left his mark as an editor and publisher of The Chicago Tribune. He believed the formula for newspaper success was obsessive curiosity, hard work and the ability to distinguish right from wrong.

J. DAVID HOGUE

Inducted: May 8, 1998

When J. David Hogue took over as publisher of the Utica, N.Y., Observer Dispatch and The Daily Press in 1937, he pledged to give his readers “accurate, informative, interesting and wholesome newspapers that would be welcomed alike by men, women and children of these communities.” For the next 21 years, he endeavored to do just that.

KENNETH G. KRAMER ‘27

Inducted: May 8, 1998

When Kenneth G. Kramer graduated from DePauw in 1927, his decision to pursue a career in journalism came as no surprise to his professors and classmates at the University. The Batesville, Ind., native graduated from DePauw with a degree in economics and began a successful journalism career that culminated in a 22-year relationship with Business Week magazine. Serving as managing editor, executive editor and editor-in-chief, Kramer oversaw a five-fold increase in staff, the addition of 14 bureaus and eight more editorial departments.

ELIZABETH J. TURNELL

Inducted: May 7, 1999

In 1949 Elizabeth Turnell left her mark upon DePauw, and indeed the country, by establishing (along with Dr. Harold Ross) the first 10-watt
college FM station in America here at DePauw University. From 1944, until her retirement in 1972, she was the broadcasting matriarch at the university, turning out students who went on to successful careers in the broadcast, advertising and theater industries, and establishing a pattern for volunteer student involvement in a full-service community radio station that continues today.

DR. ROBERT H. GILES ‘58

Inducted: May 7, 1999

In 1958, Robert Giles joined the staff of the Akron Beacon Journal and over the next 17 years held several reporting and editing positions, directed the Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Kent State shootings, and became managing editor and then executive editor.  

In 1977, Giles became executive editor of the two Gannett newspapers in Rochester, New York, the Times-Union and Democrat & Chronicle, and was promoted to editor in 1980. In 1986, he joined The Detroit News as executive editor, and became editor and publisher in 1989. In 1993, The News won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. In June 1997, Giles retired from The News and joined The Freedom Forum as a senior vice president and executive director of the Media Studies Center in New York City. In 2000, Giles became the curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. 

PHILLIP H. AULT ‘35

Inducted: October 26, 2001

Philip Autl had a multi-faceted career in journalism that would span sixty years.
In 1937, Ault was hired by United Press wire service in Chicago and New York. Transferred to the foreign desk in 1940, he was sent to Iceland and traveled in the first convoy to be escorted by American warships. Ault then went to England and North Africa, where he worked alongside Ernie Pyle, and was eventually transferred back to London as manager of the United Press bureau there. 

In 1948 Ault left the wire service and the front lines behind to begin a 30-year segment in newspapers. He was founding editorial director of the Los Angeles Mirror-News, then vice-president of Associated Desert Newspapers in southern California. Ault moved to South Bend in 1969 to be associate editor of the Tribune, spending ten years there until his retirement from the newspaper business in 1979.

JAMES C. BARBIERI ‘50

Inducted: October 11, 2002

After graduation, James Barvieri joined the staff of the Bluffton Evening News-Banner in Bluffton, Indiana, where he served over 50 years.  Barbieri gained experience working in all the newspaper’s departments, in addition to general reporting and editorial writing. Later he became an officer and director of the corporation, and in 1975, became the paper’s general manager.

In the 1980’s, he won seven major state press association awards, including four first place honors. He was invited to White House conferences with five Presidents and has interviewed six of them. He was in the Kremlin when the Soviet Union came to an end, and was one of the few American journalists to meet with then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin.  In 1986 he became co-owner, president and publisher of the News-Banner and continued in that role for the next twelve years. 

JOHN J. OLIVER, SR. ‘34

Inducted: October 31, 2003

John J. Oliver Sr., a native of Brazil, Ind., was a Rector scholar at DePauw University, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in chemistry. He joined the staff of the AFRO-American newspaper following his graduation in 1934. The AFRO was a Baltimore-based news chain founded in 1892 by Oliver’s grandfather, and is the second oldest continuously published African-American newspaper in this country, with circulation in many cities along the East Coast.
For most of his career, Oliver was the director of production. He managed the paper’s conversion from “hot type” to “cold type” and computer production. In 1976 he became the president of the AFRO, a position he held until his retirement in 1983.

BARBARA BLAKEMORE ‘46

Inducted: October 31, 2004

After graduation, Barbara Blakemoore went on to receive a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1948. She then began her professional career as an editor for Woman’s Home Companion magazine followed by Collier’s. Later, as fiction editor of Redbook, she edited a story that was included in The Best Short Stories of 1963. This marked the first time that a story from any “slick” magazine had been chosen for this yearly anthology. She then moved on to a 19-year career at McCall’s, where she rose to the position of Executive Editor. During her time there she served as president of New York City-based Women’s Media Group for a year.

DAVID MOESSINGER ‘52

Inducted: October, 2005

David Moessinger ‘52, has had a long and varied career in the television industry, wearing the hats of writer, director and producer. After beginning his media career as a freelance television writer, he became the executive producer on many popular and acclaimed series, including Walker, Texas Ranger; Murder, She Wrote; In the Heat of the Night; Jake and the Fatman; Simon and Simon; Blue Thunder and Quincy, M.E.

FORD C. FRICK ‘15

Inducted: October, 2006

Ford C. Frick ’15 was a talented print journalist, sportscaster and writer who was able to turn a love of sports into a career at the helm of professional baseball.  After work in various media in Colorado and New York, Frick was named the first director of the National League Service Bureau, in charge of all publicity for Major League Baseball, in 1934. He excelled rapidly at the position and in less than a year was elected as President of the National League.

His first act as President was to propose a National Baseball Museum, which later became the Baseball Hall of Fame. During his tenure as President he was also instrumental in saving several franchises from bankruptcy, and his popularity with owners was a factor in Frick’s unanimous election to Commissioner of Baseball in 1951. As Commissioner, Frick guided the game through a turbulent period that saw expansion from eight to ten teams in each league, the free-agent draft, the college scholarship plan and a refinement of baseball’s relationship with national TV.

DOUGLAS FRANTZ ‘71

Inducted: October, 2006

Douglas Frantz's professional newspaper career began at the News-Journal in his hometown of North Manchester, Indiana, where he was a reporter and photographer. In 1975 Frantz became city editor at the Albuquerque Tribune, and then three years later he moved to the Chicago Tribune, where he served as a Metro reporter and later a Washington reporter.

In 1987, Frantz joined the Los Angeles Times as a business reporter, and eventually became an investigative reporter in their Washington bureau. From 1994 to 2000, Frantz was an investigative reporter for The New York Times, later becoming the paper’s investigations editor. He rejoined the Los Angeles Times in May 2003 as an investigative reporter based in Istanbul.  

Frantz is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and was recognized for a Los Angeles Times series chronicling the arming of Iraq before the Gulf War, and for a New York Times series on the Church of Scientology. His other investigative reporting honors include a 1995 and 1997 Worth Bingham Prize and a 1993 Goldsmith Prize.

JOHN FROST (Jack) BRIDGE ‘42

Inducted: October, 2007

John Frost (Jack) Bridge ’42 enjoyed a distinguished career with Dow Jones that spanned 40 years. He joined the company in 1938. After graduating from
DePauw University in 1942, Bridge served a stint in the Navy before being hired at The Wall Street Journal as a reporter in 1946. Over the years he served the Journal as Page One editor, and Features editor for the Editorial page.

In 1961 he added duties at a new, weekly Dow Jones paper, the National Observer, as one of the founding editors. For more than a decade, he assigned and edited the stories for the front page of the Journal while also presiding over the editorial page and then, as managing editor, over the front page of the National Observer.

NORVAL D. REECE ‘56

Inducted: October 3, 2009

In 1988, Norval D. Reece ’56 founded Reece Communications, Inc., an investment and management company, to develop cable television in countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Reece was co-founder, chairman and CEO of Polska Telewizja Kablowa (PTK) based in Warsaw, Poland, which was the first East-West cable television joint venture in a communist country. Reece is also chairman emeritus and co-founder of Kane Reece Associates, Inc., a full-service international consulting firm that provides financial, technical and management services for the media, cable television, communications and financial industries.

LEE DIRKS ‘56

Inducted: October 8, 2010

Lee E. Dirks earned a B.A. in Political Science from DePauw in 1956 and an M.A. from the Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1957. He began his career in the industry as a summer copyreader for The Wall Street Journal while attending DePauw.

He joined the National Observer in 1962 as a business writer, graduated to page one reports and served as news editor. In 1969, Dirks moved to Wall Street where he became the nation’s first full-time newspaper stock analyst. He worked first with D.H. Thomas & Co., then with Dirks Brothers, Ltd., later with Delafield Childs, Inc.,serving as vice president and head of the Lee E. Dirks Division and finally as senior vice president of C.S. McKee & Co., Inc.

In 1976, he accepted an appointment as assistant to the president of the Detroit Free Press. He was later named acting advertising director and in August 1977 was appointed Vice President and General Manager of the newspaper, where he served through 1980.

Dirks is currently the chairman of Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, the nation’s largest and most experienced firm specializing exclusively in mergers, acquisitions, and appraisals of daily newspapers and non-daily newspaper groups. He founded the firm in 1980 and has remained chairman since that time. 

Inducted: October, 2011

Mary Leonard attended Medill School of Journalism after graduating from DePauw University.  In 1971, she joined ChicagoToday as a features writer in the lifestyle department, winning city and statewide awards for her reporting.

In Washington, D.C., Leonard became a writer and then editor at Dow-Jones’s weekly National Observer newspaper. She moved on to the Washington bureau of the Detroit News in 1977, where she covered national security and politics and managed the staff as bureau chief. In 1988 she became the deputy bureau chief for New York Newsday where she managed 20 reporters. During her tenure the staff won the Pulitzer Prize, Gerald R. Ford Award, the National Press Club Washington Correspondence Award and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for national reporting.

Leonard became the deputy bureau chief and a senior correspondent for the Boston Globe in 1994, where she directed their Washington news and political coverage. Over her 30-year career as a Washington correspondent, Leonard covered seven presidents and many political campaigns, social issues, two Gulf wars, Congress, and the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

In 2004, Leonard moved to Pittsburgh, where she became the assistant managing editor for business news at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Today, Mary Leonard is the deputy managing editor at the Post-Gazette, overseeing digital and social media in the newsroom and supervising postgazette.com; PG+, a premium sports website; and Pipeline, an award-winning website focused on the issue of natural-gas drilling in Pennsylvania. In addition, Leonard manages the Post-Gazette’s mobile platforms and award-winning multimedia department.

BILL RASMUSSEN ‘54

Inducted: October, 2012

A lifelong entrepreneur and sports fan, Bill Rasmussen ’54 is best known as the founder of ESPN, the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. His numerous innovations in sports, broadcasting and advertising include the concepts for Sports Center, wall-to-wall coverage of NCAA regular-season and March Madness basketball, coverage of the College World Series and convincing Anheuser Busch to break the cable television advertising barrier to sign the largest advertising contract at the time.

Rasmussen was named the “Father of Cable Sports” by USA Today. In 1997 he was inducted into the Connecticut Sports Museum and Hall of Fame, and in 2002 he took his place on the Rutgers University Wall of Fame. He was also honored in the 2011 class of The Champions: Pioneers and Innovators in Sports Business from Sports Business Journal and the Sports Bueiness Daily. Rasmussen remains active in numerous charity events.

JOHN MCWETHY ‘69

Inducted: June, 2014

After graduating from DePauw University in 1969, McWethy earned a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. In 1973 he went to work as a reporter for U.S. News & World Report, where he stayed until 1976. He spent his last two years as chief White House correspondent for the magazine.

McWethy joined ABC News in 1979 as chief Pentagon correspondent and was immediately tasked with covering the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Though much of his focus was on national security and diplomacy, McWethy’s stories also included terrorism, espionage and intelligence matters. In 1984 McWethy was named ABC’s chief national security correspondent, and ended up spending 27 years with the network.

BAYARD "BUD' WALTERS '63

Inducted: October, 2018

In his DePauw junior year Bayard “Bud” Walters realized he was a lousy Disc Jockey, but that he loved the difference local radio, and especially WGRE, could make in the community. Thus, he focused on broadcast management and ownership as a possible future. Over a more than 50 year career Walters’ Cromwell Group, Inc. has developed (many from scratch) over 40 radio stations, and been a launching pad for the careers of young people wanting to experience media. In that time, he was a recognized industry leader, receiving the National Radio Award from the National Association of Broadcasters, and was inducted into the broadcast association Halls of Fame for Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The Broadcasters Foundation of America also recognized him as an industry pioneer.

Bud served on The DePauw Board of Trustees for more than 20 years, and was chairman of the Pulliam Center Advisory Board for a number of years. He’s proud that nearly 1/3 of DePauw students have an activity in the PCCM, and that 10% of the student body does something on WGRE. It all began for Bud with WGRE’s farm news program that he was assigned to do because he had a southern accent. The accent has mostly disappeared, but he’s glad he had it when he came to DePauw.