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APW Awards ceremony to be held May 21 at UA-Little Rock campus Guest Column: My boss David By Mary Kincy Cope
Arkansas Press Association
Publisher Weekly Vol.17 | No. 20 | Thursday, May 19, 2022 | Serving Press and State Since 1873
Veteran Arkansas journalist Albarado joins second class of inductees in hall of fame On Friday, May 6, retired Arkansas Democrat-Gazette special projects editor Lawrence “Sonny” Albarado became a new member of the Great Plains Journalism Hall of Fame as one of the hall’s second class of inductees in a ceremony at the Tulsa Press Club in conjunction with the Great Plains Journalism Awards. The Great Plains Journalism Hall of Fame was inaugurated by the Tulsa Press Club in 2021, and Albarado is the second Arkansan to be honored with membership. Journalist Brenda Blagg was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2021. Other members of the second class of inductees were Jeannette Cooperman with St. Louis Magazine, David Fritze of Oklahoma Watch, Jim Goodwin with The Oklahoma Eagle, Wayne Greene of Public Service Company of Oklahoma and formerly with Tulsa World and Sam Jones with RSU-TV in Oklahoma. “I am humbled to be included alongside the illustrious journalists of this year’s class of inductees to the Hall of Fame,” said Albarado. “Founder of the Oklahoma Eagle Jim Goodwin, legend of Oklahoma television news Sam Jones, and the others, all amazing journalists. For me to be included with these people who, in my view, have done outstanding things in their careers…I felt really honored to be recognized alongside them. It’s just astonishing to be part of that.” Albarado got his start in journalism as editor of the student newspaper at Nicholls State University in Louisiana, where he earned a degree in English with the
intention to become an English professor. While in graduate school at Mississippi State University in 1972, he recognized a “glut of English majors on the market at that time” and accepted a job offer at the Houma Daily Courier, covering the police beat. After a brief stint there, he helped start a trade publication for the coin-operated amusement industry, but got back into the newspaper business two years later working for a weekly in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. He spent time at the Morning
Advocate in Baton Rouge and the Commercial Appeal in Memphis before moving to Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2007, where he worked until 2020. Although retired, Albarado is not sitting still. Since leaving his day job at the Democrat-Gazette, he has worked as a contract consultant and editor for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a Memphisbased online news outlet that focuses on the intersection of poverty, power and policy, and also as a contract editor and consultant for the Democrat-Gazette on a Continued on Page 2