Fisher portrait honoring late journalist Griffee donated to Dennis and Jan Schick Newspaper Museum for display

A George Fisher portrait of veteran journalist Carol M. Griffee has been donated by her family to the Dennis and Jan Schick Newspaper Museum, housed at the offices of the Arkansas Press Association in Little Rock.

Griffee’s nephew John F. Griffee III, along with his wife Char Griffee and Little Rock-based public relations consultant Jessica Szenher, who helped facilitate the donation, presented the portrait to APA in late June.

Griffee was well-known as a powerhouse in Arkansas journalism. She was born December 30, 1937, in Washington, D.C., and moved with her family to Fort Smith in 1946 after the death of her father. She graduated from high school in 1955 and immediately began her first full-time journalism job as a reporter for the Fort Smith Times-Record. She graduated with honors Phi Gamma Kappa (now Phi Beta Kappa) in journalismhistory/political science from the University of Tulsa in 1959 and received her masters degree in history/ political science from that institution in 1966. She was a member of Mortar Board; Phi Alpha Theta (history); Pi Gamma Mu (social sciences); Phi Delta Epsilon and Pi Alpha Mu (journalism); was president of Epsilon Gamma Chapter of Phi Mu sorority and of Lottie Jane Mabee Hall for Women; and was chosen three consecutive years for

Who’s Who Among

Students in American Universities and Colleges, among other honors. She also worked full-time during college as a Tulsa World reporter.

She returned to the Washington, D.C. area in 1961 and was a reporter/photographer/editor for two Fairfax County, Virginia weekly newspapers before joining the Washington Star from 1963-66, followed by a stint as city and then executive editor of the Arlington-based daily, the Northern Virginia Sun, until 1972.

Griffee became a reporter for the Arkansas Gazette in 1973, where she became known primarily for environmental, investigative, and political coverage and for being a fierce protector of the Freedom of Information Act. She resigned from the Gazette in 1985 to become an independent journalist and author, and wrote several histories, including those of the Little Rock Wastewater Utility, the Arkansas Conservation Sales Tax, and the Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area.

Griffee was a former president of Arkansas Press Women Association, a former board member of the National Federation of Press Women, and had been active in the Arkansas Professional Chapter, The Society of Professional Journalists, which gave her a Lifetime Achievement Award, October 20, 2010. Among other honors, she was the Arkansas Wildlife Federation’s 1985 Conservationist of the Year; 1996 Arkansas Journalist from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; received APA’s Freedom of Information Award in 1997; was inducted into the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame 1999, and received the Ernie Deane Award for valor in journalism in 2004. She died in January 2011 at age 74.

Beebe native Fisher was well-known political cartoonist whose work influenced and helped define Arkansas politics for a generation. He created a series of visual metaphors and themes that were widely associated with the politicians he caricatured and became a part of Arkansas political folklore.

Born in 1925, Fisher had his first cartoon, lampooning Gov. Homer Martin Adkins for claiming credit for wartime factory construction in Arkansas, published in 1944. His first cartooning position was with the West Memphis News in 1946. When the newspaper closed in 1949, Fisher offered his services to the North Little Rock Times. An instant success, his cartoons also ran in the Pine Bluff Commercial and Arkansas Gazette. In 1976, Fisher was hired as the Gazette’s fulltime editorial cartoonist, where his work became a daily mustread.

Fisher worked for the Gazette until 1991, after which he drew cartoons for the then-weekly Arkansas Times. He died in December 2003 at age 80.

An open house at the APA Headquarters, including a tour of the Dennis and Jan Schick Newspaper Museum, will be held on Thursday, July 20 as the kickoff of the 2023 APA Convention.