1998 Inductees

Mel Allen

Mel Allen is as much a part of the national pastime as the squeeze play, hot dogs, and pennants flapping in the breeze. And he never even played in the big leagues. Instead he called the games, and that allowed fans to play the games over and over in their minds. His voice is the voice that millions of fans associate with baseball. (more)

Graydon Ausmus

Graydon Ausmus didn't use a crystal ball when he peered into the future. Instead he realized a rectangular piece of glass would be the key to sending informational, educational, and stimulating programs to every household in the nation. (more)

Harry Ayers

The son of a missionary to China, Harry Ayers successfully managed a gubernatorial campaign, served on the state board of education, received the army's second highest decoration awarded to civilians, and was offered the ambassadorship to Denmark by President Truman. (more)

Buford Boone

Ever since I read your editorial, I have had an unspeakable admiration for you," read the letter. "The moral courage and profound dignity you have evinced in so many situations will long be remembered." (more)

Clarence Cason

Anyone who has profited from the University of Alabama's Department of Journalism - whether they are graduates of the program or among the millions of people who read the news-papers, magazines, and books that our graduates write, edit, and publish - owes a debt of gratitude to Clarence Cason. (more)

Clifford Durr

As a result of one Alabamian's tireless commitment to the public interest, everyday more than 2,000 noncommercial radio stations and 350 noncom-mercial television stations broadcast in the United States. (more)Douglas Edwards. Doug Edwards was to television what Charles Lindbergh was to aviation," said Don Hewitt, executive producer of 60 Minutes. (more)

John Forney

John Forney will always be remembered as the Voice of the Crimson Tide. When Alabama fans review the great plays in their minds - the Bear's 315th win, the Run in the Mud, the legendary goal-line stand - they'll hear John's play-by-play. (more)

Kenneth Giddens

Two acronyms will always be associated with Kenneth Giddens. The first, WKRG, the Mobile-based radio and TV operation he created and directed, became one of the finest broadcast operations in the South. (more)

Amelia Gayle Gorgas

Amelia Gorgas served the University of Alabama as a hospital matron, librarian, and postmistress for 25 years until her retirement at age 80 in 1907. She was the first female librarian on campus, and the Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library was the first academic building at the University named for a woman. (more)

Grover Hall, Sr.

The product of a newspaper family, Grover Hall Sr., would not be cowed by the Ku Klux Klan. (more)

Victor Hanson

Victor Hanson was all of 11 years old when he began his first successful publication - a children's newspaper he founded in Macon, Georgia - and he took it with him when his family moved to Columbus. Four years later, the circulation reached 2,500, and he sold his interest in the paper for $2,000. Not bad for a 15 year old in 1891. (more)

Porter Harvey

Porter Harvey graduated from Emory University, studied literature at Harvard, and worked for the New York Post, Nashville Tennessean, and Birmingham Post. But it was his dream to own a weekly newspaper - one that would be concerned with the stories neighbors discussed over cups of coffee and across backyard fences. (more)

William Bradford Huie

William Bradford Huie wrote 21 books that sold more than 28 million copies. Seven of his books were made into Hollywood movies. He set the sales records for three of the nation's leading newsmagazines that published his articles. Huie's book The Execution of Private Slovik - the story of the only American serviceman to be executed for cowardice and desertion in World War II - was the most-watched television movie when it aired in 1975. And his investigations into racial murders in the South bolstered the civil rights movement. (more)

Emory Jackson

As editor of the Birmingham World, Emory Jackson was a fearless and indefatigable champion for civil rights in Alabama. Through hundreds of front page stories and especially in his famous column, "The Tip-Off," Jackson railed against Jim Crow, championed the NAACP, encouraged interracial committees working against segregation, demanded an end to the poll tax and the white primary, rallied blacks to register to vote, chronicled the events of the explosive civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and repeatedly confronted Birmingham police commissioner "Bull" Conner with vivid accounts of brutality perpetrated by his officers. (more)

Henry Johnston

Henry Johnston was the epitome of a civic leader, al- though he never sought or held elected office. A graduate of Washington and Lee University, Johnston held key executive positions in the business operations of The Birmingham News and The Huntsville Times. (more)

Helen Keller

Eleanor Roosevelt called her "America's goodwill ambassador to the world." Helen Keller called herself "an international beggar." She remains, quite simply, Alabama's most famous and celebrated citizen. The winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the United States, and friend of ten presidents, she was eulogized by Senator Lister Hill as "one of the few names born not to die." (more)

Carroll Kilpatrick

Despite having one of the most visible and demanding jobs in journalism of covering the White House for The Washington Post, Carroll Kilpatrick is remembered for his kindness, courtesy, and willingness to lend a helping hand to young reporters. (more)

Martin Luther King

Alabama figures prominently in the life of the nation's leading crusader for human rights. It tested his social conscience as a young pastor in Montgomery and became the principal battleground in his stride toward freedom. (more)

John Luskin

By the 1940s, the journalism department that Clarence Cason established at the University of Alabama had attracted a renowned faculty. Among the most admired and respected of these professors was John Luskin, a legendary teacher who possessed a sharp intellect. (more)

Frank McGee

Television newsman Frank McGee's tenure in Alabama was short, but his work was so extraordinary it propelled him from a local affiliate in Montgomery to NBC's news desk in Washington. (more)

Charles Scarritt

A misspelled name in an assignment submitted for Charles Scarritt's reporting class at The University of Alabama meant an automatic "F." "People's names are important to them. So get them right," he told his students. (more)

Barrett Shelton, Sr.

Barrett Shelton was editor and publisher of The Decatur Daily for 60 years but was first and foremost a community leader. Thanks in large measure to his enthusiastic championing of the development of the Tennessee Valley, in his lifetime Decatur grew from a town of 5,000 with no industries to a city of more than 43,000 with more Fortune 500 companies than Birmingham. (more)

Hazel Brannon Smith

Ordinary people often perform the most heroic deeds in extraordinary times. Hazel Brannon Smith never intended to be a civil rights champion. (more)

Frank Thomas

Frank Thomas left the navy in 1943 with "a full head of steam," as seamen say, but not much money. So he borrowed $150 and started his first paper, The Alabama Citizen, in Tuscaloosa. Soon Thomas would be one of the state's preeminent newspaper publishers and possess one of the strongest voices calling for racial equality. (more)