• The late Mark Ferree, a longtime senior executive of the Scripps-Howard newspaper company who was a national free press advocate as president of the American Newspaper Publishers Association in 1960-62. Ferree grew up in Marion, Ind., and was a writer for the Marion Chronicle before he attended Indiana University in the early 1920s. His career included stints as a reporter for the Evansville Courier, advertising director for the Indianapolis Times and vice president of the Richmond Palladium-Item.



• Skip Hess, who spearheaded numerous prominent investigative projects during more than 30 years as a reporter for the Indianapolis News and Indianapolis Star. His work included exposing inhumane treatment of mentally ill patients at state hospitals that led to state reforms in the 1970s, and disclosure of misuse of taxpayer money after which the state schools superintendent was convicted of official misconduct and the secretary of state repaid thousands of dollars. Hess worked at the Kokomo Morning Times and the Wabash Plain Dealer before going to Indianapolis. He has continued writing an outdoors column for the Star since retiring as a reporter in 1999.



• Steve Kroft, a native of Kokomo, Ind., who has been a correspondent for CBS’ 60 Minutes for more than two decades. He has won numerous national awards for stories such as the vulnerability of the nation’s power grid to computer hackers and the conflict of interests between military contractors and the government in the awarding of contracts. He was a Stars and Stripes correspondent in Vietnam before starting his broadcast journalism career and joining CBS News in 1981.



• The late Kate Milner Rabb, an author, historian and pioneering newspaper columnist. Rabb was a Rockport, Ind., native who wrote columns devoted to the state’s history for The Indianapolis Star from 1920 until 1937 — a time when few women had such opportunities. She was president of the Woman’s Press Club of Indiana in 1929-31, and a residence hall at her alma mater Indiana University was named in her honor in 1961.



• David Weaver, an Indiana University professor whose research on working journalists and on agenda setting in media have gained notoriety. Weaver joined the journalism faculty at IU in 1974 after earlier earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the university. He has written or co-written several books, three focusing on data about journalists he helped gather, published in 1986, 1996 and 2007, and others focusing on agenda setting.

For more information, contact:
Lawrence P. Taylor, Executive Director
Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame
940 E. Seventh St.
Bloomington, IN 47405
(812) 856-9898
ijhf@indiana.edu
 

• Read more at the Leppert Funeral Home website.
• See Lautner’s Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame biography.

• Bloomington-based attorney Terry English honed his journalism skills as a police and courts reporter, press aide to an Indiana Secretary of State and (Bloomington) Herald-Telephone’s managing editor before getting his law degree in 1979.
• Terre Haute native Stephanie Salter spent 28 years as a reporter at the San Francisco Examiner (later the Chronicle), before returning home in 2004. At the (Terre Haute) Star-Tribune, she was assistant editor for opinion and commentary.
• Eunice Trotter pursued a career that led from The Indianapolis Recorder to The Indianapolis Star to several newspapers around the county. Along the way, she also ran her own public relations business. She now is communications specialist for American Senior Communities.

• See a full list of board members.
• Learn more about the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.

• Only one award will be presented each year.
• The board has no requirement that the award must be presented each year.
• Receipt of this award does not make one a member of the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.
• The award may be presented posthumously.

• Children and grandchildren of Jack Backer spoke about his work and legacy. As Indiana Daily Student publisher in the 1960s and early 70s, Backer guided the student newspaper’s transition from a school-controlled classroom lab to a fully independent news organization paying its own way and dealing with decision-making issues as would any newspaper.


• J. Bruce Baumann, retired editor of the Evansville Courier and Press who led the newspaper to two Hoosier State Press Association Blue Ribbon awards during his nine years of leadership, thanked the many people who had influenced his long career — including a few who had fired him. He worked as a photographer, newspaper designer, assistant managing editor and editor, and is a four-time Picture Editor of the Year and three-time Photographer of the Year recipient.


• Bill Nangle, who leads The Times of Northwest Indiana, also spearheaded the State of Secrecy project to uncover abuses of the state’s freedom of public information process, which led to reforms. He recounted the challenges and rewards of operating a large media organization over three decades.


• The family of Clay Trusty Jr., including daughter Karen Braeckel of Hoosier State Press Association, remembered his dedication to newspapering. David Mannweiler, who worked with Trusty at the Indianapolis News, and Mayer Maloney, who was one of Trusty's high school interns, recounted their mentor's dedication to working with young people to ensure that Indiana newspapers retained state talent. During his long career with the Indianapolis News, Trusty initiated the Indiana Plan to do just that.


• Board member Ernie Wilkinson recalled working with editorial cartoonist Charles G. Werner at the Indianapolis Star. As a college journalist in Terre Haute, Wilkinson once was physically tossed out of a meeting, a scene Werner depicted in an editorial cartoon. A Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for five decades, Werner also won the 1951 National Headliners Club award and eight Freedom Foundation awards.

• Read all about the inductees for 2011.
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