GRADUATE PROFILES

Profiles

DARIAN BILLINGTON

By Samantha Mitchell

Darian Billington (’96) was born and raised in the Mississippi Delta as the sixth of seven children. His father was a mechanic and prominent blues musician Johnnie Billington. His mother was caring and loving. She encouraged him to discover the world for himself.

Today, he is a senior producer for HLN and works closely with

Robin Meade and other well-known TV personalities. And he will tell you, he couldn’t be more proud to be from Mississippi.

“For me, education changed everything,” Billington said. “I don’t think that can ever be underestimated. It made a huge difference in the outcome of my life and where I managed to get to.”

Growing up, Billington was a lot of firsts in his family, including the first to attend college.

“I had a much smaller vision for myself,” Billington said. “Going to college was sort of a last-minute decision, and it was not something that was sort of talked about or expected.”

To this day, he speaks fondly of his first encounter with the

Department of Journalism at Ole Miss, as well as his first meeting with Dean Will Norton, Jr. — experiences he now says changed the course of his life.

“I showed Darian around Farley Hall when he visited before enrolling at the university,” Norton said. “He took advantage of the fine faculty members we had and the student media. By the time he graduated he had significant experience, and his common sense and sensitivity have enabled him to be a leading producer at CNN. He is an example of excellence and uncommon stewardship.”

Billington started at Ole Miss in the fall of 1988, where he discovered his love for storytelling and traveling. He received hands-on experience working for News Scene 12, now known as NewsWatch, as well as The Daily Mississippian and the radio station.

“It was very hard to be at Ole Miss and not be affected by the ambition of the people around you,” Billington said, “That slowly but surely changed my vision, the dreams that I had for myself.”

His college experiences didn’t end there. He received the distinguished opportunity to intern at “Good Morning America” in New York City in the summer of 1992 and fell in love with Manhattan. He recalled that he did not know where anything was, but he didn’t mind.

Billington walked in his graduation ceremony in spring of 1993; however, his diploma states 1996. He chuckled as he recounted his experiences, noting that he traveled a bit before he officially graduated. He stayed in Paris for several months, as well as other countries such as Italy, Spain and Greece. Billington has traveled to at least 40 different countries since his graduation, but, he said, the university is a place he won’t forget.

“Ole Miss and the School of Journalism have played a huge part in making me the man I am today,” he said. “I could not be more proud to be a product of both.”

Billington’s first job out of Ole Miss was with the Associated Press Broadcast News Center in Washington, D.C. He worked for them for two years then was hired away to work for CNN International originally as a VJ. He quickly was promoted to work as an associate producer at CNN. One of the first major news stories that he covered was the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. in a plane crash.

Ole Miss and the School of Journalism have played a huge part in making me the man I am today. I could not be more proud to be a product of both.”

“I was in the newsroom and I was stunned by just how efficient [CNN was] about getting information — correct information at that,” Billington said. “I don’t think a lot of people realize the process and how many layers that information goes through to make sure it is accurate and on-point.”

It was Hurricane Katrina that really hit home for him and altered his career path. Much of Billington’s family lives in Mississippi and on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Billington became a producer at CNN after his team showcased the stories of people in the area.

“I like that we get to talk to real people, give them a voice and let them be heard, “ Billington said. “When you hear real emotion, I feel like people really connect with it, particularly during a tragic event.”

Billington has since been working with CNN’s sister network, HLN, and has worked with Robin Meade since the fall of 2007. He credits much of the work he has produced to his collaboration with Robin Meade and the hard-working producers of the morning show, “Morning Express with Robin Meade.”

“What I love is that so many people identify with Darian, the dream of coming from small town, USA and making it big in this field,” Meade said. “It’s that special combination of being tenacious, aggressive, yet humble, relatable and sincere. That’s Darian, that’s what makes him so talented at getting people to talk, to open up and show their real selves. That is the very essence of a journalist.”

Billington’s career has been far from the ordinary all around. He has met a variety of people, from Kenny Chesney to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, to political figures, presidents and other famous people. More than that, he finds the opportunity to meet with different kinds of people to be rewarding, in addition to being able to tell their stories. In particular, Billington enjoys shining light on the Mississippi Delta and the distinguished people who come from it. Billington felt particularly humbled by Morgan Freeman coming onto his show.

“[Morgan Freeman] is an incredibly inspiring person, and I was honored and privileged that he would come on my show,” Billington said. “It was certainly a big highlight of my career, especially to be able to do that and highlight the Delta through him. I was very proud of that.”

When speaking on his experiences during his career, Billington said, “There’s not a day that passes when I see a CNN or HLN sign logo that I’m not thinking, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’”

Billington credits much of his success to taking chances and opening the doors to further opportunities.

When asked about his advice to aspiring journalists in the field, he said, “Say, ‘yes,’ when opportunities present themselves. Don’t be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone.”

The author is an integrated marketing communications graduate student from Tampa, Florida.

Profiles

SHELLY ROBERTSON BIRDSONG

By Sabrina Clinton

Visiting Ole Miss and experiencing Oxford’s southern charm and beauty have always been reasons why the University of Mississippi has been the first choice for many prospective students.

In high school, Shelly Robertson Birdsong (’96) visited a childhood friend at the university and was taken by the magic of the Grove. Later, as a freshman at Samford University, the Franklin, Tennessee, native continued to visit friends at the university, and attended parties and games. She transferred her sophomore year.

“After taking tours of the actual university and learning more about the programs, I instantly knew that Ole Miss was the place for me to pursue my degree in journalism and political science because of the outstanding nature of the programs at Ole Miss,” she said.

Robertson Birdsong is owner of Robertson Media Group, LLC. RMG offers marketing, public relations and social media consulting and strategy, graphic design, photography, custom magazine publishing, and event management. She is the publisher of YOUR Williamson A Community Magazine, which showcases communities and residents of Williamson County, Tennessee, and serves as a business, social, lifestyle and community magazine. RMG also publishes www.yourwilliamson.com a full, online magazine with daily content, a calendar and social media. She started these endeavors on her own in April 2011.

“I never anticipated or planned on owning my own business but when the opportunity presented itself four years ago, I took it,” Robertson Birdsong said.

Her husband Johnny Birdsong began working with her two years ago as vice president of Sales & Development, and is now president of the company. After they married, Johnny Birdsong decided to leave his corporate sales job and stop traveling. He is in charge of RMG’s sales team, distribution, much of the development of new projects and community relations’ activities.

“He is a master salesman,” Robertson Birdsong said. “It was a perfect opportunity, both for him to do something different and to help me build what is now our business,”

As an alumna of the University of Mississippi, Robertson Birdsong started an endowed scholarship fund in honor of her grandmother, Stuart Bryant Robertson.

“I wanted to be able to honor how I got where I am today,” Robertson Birdsong said. “What better way to do it than to name it after the person who has inspired me the most, my grandmother.”

“She encouraged me to read the newspaper and to stay current, and I translated this love for reading into journalism. Becoming an editor of a local magazine and writing for the DM in college helped me to express that. I thank my grandmother for that.”

Being able to own my own business, produce an amazing publication each month and contribute to our community as a whole in every way we can makes our life feel so very blessed.”

John Festervand, the former development officer for the Meek School worked with Birdsong-Robertson to establish the scholarship fund.

“Shelly’s love for Ole Miss runs deep, and we are grateful for her family’s investment,” Festervand said.

The Stuart B. Robertson and Robertson Media Group Endowed Scholarship Fund will be awarded to its first recipient from the graduating seniors of Williamson County attending the University of Mississippi in the fall of 2015.

“Shelly and her husband run a golf tournament to raise funds for scholarships,” said Will Norton, Jr., dean of the Meek School. “It is amazing to watch their promotional work and see their ability to focus on details as they implement their vision of helping prospective students.”

Robertson Birdsong studied journalism and political science, with an emphasis in public relations.

She was a part of Young Democrats of America Club, an organization that is an official extension of the Democratic Party.

“I was one of few on the Ole Miss campus, but I was very vigilant,” Robertson Birdsong said. “After college, I’ve actually never claimed a party, because of my own personal philosophy.”

She used her interest in political science and public relations to begin working on the campaign trails of Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Steve Hewlett and President Bill Clinton. Subsequently, she worked in the Murfreesboro, Tennessee, offices of Congressman Bart Gordon.

“I loved being part of the campaigns,” Robertson Birdsong said. “It gave me valuable experience with public relations, but I eventually changed my mind about a career in politics.”

Robertson Birdsong still reflects on her classes and professors from the university. She now gives credit to Dr. Samir Husni’s magazine publishing classes for her success in publishing, even though she did not see this as a career path during her time in the program.

“I still remember my writing and publishing classes at Ole Miss, “Robertson Birdsong said. “I remember Dr. Husni’s magazine publication class. I had no interest in publishing, and now that’s how I make my living. I have since utilized every class I took during undergrad, and I’m grateful for the program.”

“Students like Shelly make being a teacher worthwhile,” Husni said. “We were only the fertilizer to our students. It brings pride to the professor to know that our lectures weren’t being told to deaf ears.”

Robertson Birdsong started her career in public relations as an event planner and fundraising manager for several local non-profits.

“Communication skills and personality are what led me to head into event management,” she said.

Robertson Birdsong has been a notable and active citizen in the Williamson County community. She is a former member of the Franklin Noon Rotary Club and Soroptimist of Williamson County, her family attends Franklin First United Methodist Church and she has volunteered with numerous organizations and chaired many activities for many years.

On top of serving as the current ambassador and member of Williamson, Inc., she has been a member and participated in both the Williamson County-Franklin and Brentwood-Cool Springs

Chambers as well as previously serving on the Board of Directors for the Cool Springs Chamber of Commerce and serving as interim executive director for a year as a consultant. “I’ve called Williamson County my home for my entire life,” Robertson Birdsong said.

Robertson Birdsong resides in Franklin, Tennessee, with her husband, two-year-old daughter Stuart Keeling, and 13-year-old stepson Bo. Stuart Keeling is already an Ole Miss fan with several cheerleading outfits. Bo loves football and is considering the University of Mississippi, even though his father is a Kentucky man.

“[Stuart Keeling] is the absolute joy of our lives, and my stepson is growing into a phenomenal young man before our eyes,” said Robertson Birdsong.

“Being a mom is the greatest joy there is. Being able to own my own business, produce an amazing publication each month and contribute to our community as a whole in every way we can makes our life feel so very blessed.”

The author is a senior, integrated marketing communications major from Canton, Mississippi.

Profiles

By Samantha Mitchell

Mississippi native, fourth-generation newspaper journalist, and proud small-town entrepreneur: these are three descriptors that could adequately describe University of Mississippi alumnus John Carney (’86).

Carney had a unique childhood experience, namely because of familial connections to the newspaper company founded in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, known as The Meteor. This family-run company has grown to acquire two other newspapers since

Carney has been out of college. The company has served Mississippi for more than 132 years.

“I can remember standing in a print shop, stuffing these newspapers at probably five or six years of age,” Carney said. “There just never was any question in my mind about whether I was going to go into journalism and the newspaper business.”

Carney attended the University of Mississippi when journalism was considered part of the business school, and with that he had the unique experience of attaining a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism.

“Ole Miss somehow got in my blood,” Carney said. “I don’t know what threw me there, but that was my life plan. I was going to go to Ole Miss.”

Carney has now worked at the Lawrence County

Press in Monticello, Mississippi, for 28 years, where he is both editor and publisher. The newspaper covers local news, including spot news and government.

“Being in a small town has afforded me the opportunity to really get involved with things that go on within the town,” Carney said. “I enjoy knowing what’s going on in the county, and I think it’s a very high responsi

JOHN CARNEY

You’ve got to have a community connection. That’s true whether you’re in Monticello, Mississippi, or New York City. If you’re not relevant, you’re not going to be there long.”

bility to try to pass that on to our readers.”

Carney has served as the president of the local Chamber of Commerce, as well as the Lion’s Club. He also was on the board of directors of the Mississippi Press Association for around 10 years, becoming president of the Mississippi Press Association in 2000.

“John and the Carney family are fixtures within the state press association,” said Layne Bruce, executive director of the MPA. “I got to know John first about 18 years ago when he served at a tender young age as MPA president. Now I have the privilege to work with him at the association level. They own and publish three community newspapers that are vital to the fabric of those towns and counties in south Mississippi. And, in keeping with the trend of diversification, they have launched within the last few years a vibrant, successful magazine that focuses on the unique culinary heritage of Mississippi. It’s a thriving enterprise that underscores the strength of journalism at the grass roots level.”

The Mississippi Press Association was founded in 1866 and serves as a statewide board for newspapers in Mississippi, providing resources such as content and advertising for newspapers throughout the state.

“John Carney is a newspaperman whose dedication to his community, our industry, and Ole Miss is unwavering,” said Joel McNeece, president of the Mississippi Press Association. “The Mississippi Press Association values his friendship, support and leadership as a past president of the organization.”

“When your peers think enough of you to make you active in their associations, that’s the crown jewel of my career,” Carney said. “To be able to serve those organizations the way I was able to.”

During his first three years in Monticello, he met J. J., his wife, at a local church. John Carney affectionately describes her as a “graphics guru” and a “foodie.” When she is not busy with their son, who is in high school, or checking on their daughter, who is at Ole Miss, or working as the associate editor at the newspaper, she is working on her magazine, appropriately titled Eat. Drink. Mississippi.

“The magazine is the result of my wife’s creativity, and I help her however and whenever I can,” Carney said.

“There’s absolutely a culture of food in Mississippi,” he said. “We have everything from white-table-cloth restaurants to roadside joints that all put out some superb food.”

The magazine also has sparked an interest in Carney’s daughter, a student in the hospitality management program. She has professed an interest in possibly taking some classes at the Meek School of Journalism and New Media. Neither of Carney’s children has expressly shown interest in publishing newspapers, however, and he wishes not to push it on them, but will support them either way.

Community and relevancy are key for many small town newspapers and integral to the Lawrence County Press.

“You’ve got to have a community connection,” Carney said. “That’s true whether you’re in Monticello, Mississippi, or New York City. If you’re not relevant, you’re not going to be there long.”

“I’m a low-key kind of guy,” Carney said. “I just want to do my job effectively and have people say that he was a kind, compassionate person who served us well at our newspaper. After all, it is a community, and it’s their newspaper.”

The author is an integrated marketing communications graduate student from Tampa, Florida.

Profiles

HANNAH CHALKER

By Hayley Ramagos

Staying hungry and humble is Hannah Chalker’s (’11) key to success. The 26-year-old sports broadcast journalist has already worked with networks such as ESPN3, ESPNU, Comcast Sports Southeast, SEC Digital Network and Fox News Channel. Currently she works for University of Alabama Athletics as on-air personality and producer with Crimson Tide Productions & SEC Network productions.

Her career has blossomed because she took full advantage of her resources during her time as an Ole Miss undergrad. Chalker served as a news anchor and reporter for NewsWatch and a student reporter for Ole Miss Sports Productions.

“I naturally remember the students who stand out,” said Nancy Dupont, Chalker’s Journalism 102 professor and later both her Media Performance and Advanced Television Reporting professor. “Hannah stood out. She was very confident that she could learn anything and learn to do it well.”

Growing up in a sports-loving family is what planted the seed that grew into Chalker’s love and talent for sports broadcasting. When she and her sisters weren’t busy playing for their volleyball and year-round soccer teams, she and her family were attending every professional sporting event in Atlanta. Whether it was the Braves, Falcons or Thrashers, the Chalker family was there.

But she did not find her calling until her senior year, when Chalker landed an on-air position with ESPNU Campus Connection as the SEC recap reporter for an Ole Miss basketball game against Southern Miss.

“It was that moment standing on the court, talking over screaming fans with lights blinding my eyes that I knew I was in love,” Chalker said. “It was a rush and familiarity that’s hard to explain.”

Three months after graduation, Chalker quickly accepted her first professional job in Orlando, Florida, as a reporter and producer for the SEC Digital Network, powered by XOS Digital. She rapidly adjusted to the demanding, odd hours of the world of sports broadcasting and determinedly fought to prove herself in a male-dominated industry.

“In every industry there’s a learning curve between a newbie and a veteran, but being female and green has it’s own set of challenges in the sports world,” Chalker said. “You have to constantly prove that you’ve done your homework and that you know what you’re talking about. Being a female sports broadcaster takes a lot of guts, and it’s a full time job proving that you’re so much more than just a pretty face.”

One thing is certain: Chalker accomplishes everything through hard work. After her position with ESPNU Campus Connection, she was asked to intern with Ole Miss Sports Productions as a reporter for olemisssports.com. It was there that she met J. Stern, the former Assistant Athletics Director for Ole Miss Sports Productions.

“She had an intuitiveness that resonated in what she did,” Stern said. “I would let her work, and she would just do it right.”

Stern, impressed with Chalker’s work ethic, quickly came to play a pivotal role in her learning experience in the sports broadcast world and, later, in her professional career. “[J. Stern] has been my mentor and dear friend since my senior year of college,” Chalker said. “He helped me gain the necessary production and writing skills that I needed for sports broadcasting, as well as put me in contact with the right people to learn from and grow professionally over the years.”

Chalker learned things that she never could have been taught inside the classroom. Stern gave advice when she needed it and showed her techniques that further set her apart from other broadcast students.

“The biggest thing was her learning how to old-school edit,” Stern said. “She was the first student I ever had in the work force who learned how to do that. Taking the time to old-school edit eventually led her to a job.”

Stern credits Chalker’s professional success to her positive attitude.

“I like how she is paying her dues — taking the time for learning writing and editing the right way and not just jumping in front of the camera,” Stern said. “She mastered the conversational writing of broadcast early and she was able to write in her own, different way.”

This was also apparent in her work in Professor Dupont’s classes. Dupont recognized Chalker’s ability to create a confident presence in front of the camera all while using her amiable people skills to get a great story.

“Her personality is extremely pleasant,” Dupont said. “That makes her a very strong interviewer. When she was on camera, she was more than just a pretty face. There was a power behind her reporting that made her stand out.”

Maybe Chalker’s talent and success in sports broadcasting is simply a product of passion. She says sports and writing are the two things she is most passionate about. “Besides the ones (sports) I cover, I’m always involved in some

kind of sports league whether it’s golf, volleyball, softball, etc. On the other hand, I’m extremely passionate about writing and expressing myself. Even when I was very young, you could always find me with a pencil in my hand writing some kind of story or poem.”

Chalker finds the opportunities she has to mentor young aspiring journalists as the most rewarding aspect of her job. She likes to have a shadow on the field with her for every game to show them the ins and outs of being a sideline reporter.

For Chalker, the long nights, early mornings and lack of social life during football season is worth the unrivaled excitement of her job.

“Picture this: it’s Saturday during the primetime game of the week, the fans are so loud you can barely hear yourself think, and the guys in the booth are getting ready to throw it down to you for your opening hit of the game,” Chalker said. “Now that’s what I call fun.”

In addition to her sideline reporting, Chalker is host for the 2016 documentary, “The Wishbone Boys,” chronicling the University of Alabama football program’s most historic periods under head coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. After achieving so many milestones in only three years, Chalker clearly has the potential to go wherever her will power takes her.

“My dream is to one day host a primetime sportscast,” Chalker said. “As much as I love infield reporting, I’ve always seen myself behind a news desk somewhere. That’s what I hope I’m doing in the next few years, living out my dream, so I can come up with a new one.”

The author is a senior, Integrated Marketing Communications major from Winona, Mississippi.

Being a female sports broadcaster takes a lot of guts, and it’s a full time job proving that you’re so much more than just a pretty face.”

Profiles

ADAM GANUCHEAU

By Jana Rosenberg

One might think that Adam Ganucheau (’14) always had dreamed of becoming a journalist. The 23-year-old Hazlehurst, Mississippi, native was editor-in-chief of The Daily Mississippian, has contributed to The New York Times, and is now a social media strategist and general reporter for AL.com/The Birmingham News. However, it was not until the second semester of his freshman year at The University of Mississippi that he fell in love with the world of journalism, thanks to an open columnist position at The Daily Mississippian.

“I had been a pretty good writer in high school, and I thought it might be a fun opportunity,” Ganucheau said. “After a couple weeks of writing columns, some of which I am embarrassed of today, I was hooked. There was nothing like walking around campus seeing people read your work.”

That semester, he made the change from the Ole Miss School of Business to the Meek School of Journalism and New Media. He has never looked back or questioned his decision to pursue a career in journalism.

Ganucheau was far from your average college student. He was involved 100 percent inside and outside the classroom. He took on multiple internships, one with The Northside Sun his freshman year and another with The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal his junior year.

“I’d say a good percentage of what I learned during my college years came during the few internships I had,” Ganucheau said. “That’s not any knock on the faculty or the courses they taught, but nothing teaches you more than being in an actual newsroom with professional journalists in the fast-paced settings.”

Aside from writing news stories for internships, professors and the Ole Miss student body, he spent time monitoring trends on social media accounts of multiple organizations. He also closely followed page visits and other analytical properties that helped determine how news can be delivered better.

His understanding of the importance of multimedia and his wide range of abilities in all aspects of journalism have fueled his enthusiasm for the field. During his time as editor-in-chief of The Daily Mississippian, he directed a complete redesign of both the printed publication and the newspaper’s website. He also is responsible for launch and management of the newspaper’s first app for Apple and Android products.

That is a lot for a college student to accomplish in such a short time while juggling a semester’s course load and leading the school’s award-winning newspaper. Ganucheau explained that the amount of support he had kept him more motivated and driven than ever.

“The Meek School faculty was wonderful,” he said. “For me, they struck that perfect balance of pushing hard while guiding me and really teaching me. I had a great group of friends that I knew I could go to and ask for advice. My support group really was key to being able to stay so driven during college”.

As director of the Student Media Center and faculty advisor for The Daily Mississippian, Patricia Thompson worked closely with Ganucheau everyday for more than a year before his graduation. Thompson has been a big part of Ganucheau’s career as a student journalist at Ole Miss. Indeed, the two still talk regularly.

“Without Pat Thompson, I wouldn’t be half the journalist I am today,” Ganucheau said. “She kept me focused on the big picture and level headed whenever I needed to take a step back.”

Thompson describes Ganucheau as an extraordinary young man and leader.

“I watched in admiration as day after day, he pushed himself and his staff to cover the campus with courage and fairness,” Thompson said. “He found time to write many articles and editorials himself without short-changing his role as the main decision maker. He and his key editors had a major impact.”

Thompson believes that any media company would be lucky to land him and that Ganucheau is well on his way to becoming a top national journalist.

Logan Kirkland, editor of The Daily Mississippian for 2015-2016, experienced Ganucheau’s ability to cover even the most intimidating news stories for student journalists.

“Adam is headstrong,” Kirkland said. “He will take any assignment and run with it. I mean for him to be the first one to get the James Meredith incident out there was unbelievable. I think that was some of the best coverage that The Daily Mississippian had seen in a long time.”

Kirkland also commended Ganucheau for the

Whether it’s furthering some kind of positive change, informing people about injustices or just giving people a story to tell at a cocktail party, you’re helping them. If you’re not helping people, you’re not doing it right.”

energy he brought into the newsroom. Not only was he hardworking as head of the newspaper, but he also encouraged his staff to be the same way.

“A lot of hard workers are very secluded, but his hard work definitely pulsed through the entire staff,” Kirkland said. “Coming into the newsroom while he was here had an exciting and professional factor to it. He definitely had the right dynamic.” Ganucheau’s leadership goes far beyond the position he held as editor-in-chief of The Daily Mississippian. Thanks to his oversight of all aspects of the newspaper’s coverage, changes were implemented throughout the entire university. These changes are helping to improve campus diversity today.

During the 2013-2014 Ole Miss school year, two serious incidents of prejudice made national news. Ganucheau jumped at the opportunity to cover both and broke two national stories in the process.

During a UM Theater Department production of “The Laramie Project,” a somber play about an openly gay man who was murdered, multiple students disrupted the play, using gay slurs and interrupting cast members with loud gestures. Ganucheau and his staff broke the story in The Daily Mississippian, and it became the first to make national news.

In February of 2014, Ganucheau broke another national story about two students who hung a rope noose around the statue of James Meredith, the first black student at Ole Miss. He considers this to be his biggest achievement of his journalism career thus far, and the staff’s coverage of that incident contributed to The Daily Mississippian being named one of the top three student newspapers in the nation by the Society of Professional Journalists in May of 2015. “I devoted my life to the coverage of that story for literally months,” he said. “I read about the indictment in the Washington Post in March, and the lead source in that article was U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Seeing the real impact of journalism is something so powerful I can’t put it into words. That’s definitely my proudest moment as a journalist so far”.

Kirkland believes that Ganucheau’s coverage of the James Meredith incident not only set the bar for the present team at the Student Media Center, but for future staff members as well.

“He’s definitely left his mark here in the Student Media Center and on campus through his writing,” he said. “I mean that’s one of the most impressive things to see as a journalist and that’s what you want to hear — that your writing has changed people’s lives and the campus itself.”

In April of his senior year, Ganucheau was dispatched to Louisville, Mississippi, to assist The New York Times’ coverage of the devastating tornadoes that tore through the southern United States on April 28. His contribution led to a shared byline with a Times reporter, and the story was published in the April 30 national issue.

The summer after graduation, he landed an internship with USA Today in McLean, Virginia. Dennis Moore, USA Today news editor, who also is an Ole Miss alumnus, had reached out to a couple of faculty members at the Meek School, encouraging Ganucheau to apply, and he interviewed and was hired.

“I was shocked, and I was very proud,” Ganucheau said. “The people at that paper are world-class journalists. I learned so much that summer, and I made some great connections. For most of the summer, I just knew that I’d try to pursue a full-time job in the Washington area, but Mississippi called me home.” After leaving USA Today, Ganucheau was hired by the newspaper he grew up reading, The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. It was not long after that when David Magee, another Ole Miss alumnus, asked him to join the Alabama Media Group (AL.com/The Birmingham News).

“It was a great opportunity to take on some more responsibility within a newsroom and continue to grow as a journalist,” Ganucheau said.

Between the two jobs, he covered more hard news than he ever had. His reporting included Mississippi’s gay marriage federal lawsuit, an exposé on an elected official who broke state election laws, the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march and a presidential visit to Birmingham.

“I’ve had some great opportunities so far in the South that I wouldn’t have gotten had I stayed in DC or moved to New York or anywhere else,” he said. “The South is an absolute goldmine for journalists.”

Aside from his love of the South, Ganucheau has learned that his love for journalism goes beyond the enjoyment of newspaper writing. He believes that it is getting to know people and helping them that makes him so passionate about his profession.

“Whether it’s furthering some kind of positive change, informing people about injustices or just giving people a story to tell at a cocktail party, you’re helping them,” he said. “If you’re not helping people, you’re not doing it right.”

Clearly, Ganucheau made his mark within the journalism field on and off campus even before being handed his diploma from Ole Miss. With the talent, knowledge and ability to promote news in nothing short of a professional manner, he experienced a jumpstart for his career when he was just 22, and success has continued.

“If you work hard and make a real effort to learn, you’ll come out completely ready to enter the field and compete with the best of the best,” he said. “Put me side by side with graduates of the top journalism schools in the country, and I’ll be able to compete with them because of what I learned in the Meek School and through my internships that were fostered by the school.”

The author is a junior, broadcast journalism major from Raleigh, North Carolina.

Profiles

DAN GOODGAME

By Waverly McCarthy

Every morning as Ole Miss students took breaks between their classes, Dan Goodgame (’75) would stand on the balcony of the old Student Union and watch as they would grab copies of The Daily Mississippian and discuss the latest campus news with their friends on the steps below.

As editor of the DM, he would study what articles they read first, what held their attention, and he would eavesdrop on what they would say to each other.

“It was all very helpful to me in shaping and improving the paper’s coverage, its design, story placement and flow. It also made me very proud of the work that our staff did,” Goodgame said. “It was one of my favorite parts of every day.”

Born in Pascagoula, Goodgame chose not to leave his home state for college, heading for Oxford in 1972 and hoping to “get the broadest possible education across the arts and sciences, with the thought of possibly going on to law school.”

When he discovered The Daily Mississippian, he knew that journalism was for him.

“Journalism to me was the perfect excuse to engage my curiosity, meet people, ask lots of questions, tell interesting stories and sometimes shake things up,” Goodgame said.

That is what he did during his time at Ole Miss.

“I thought that reporting and writing was the most fun you could have with your clothes on,” Goodgame said.

As editor of The Daily Mississippian, Goodgame searched for and reported the big stories. From price-fixing at local dry cleaners to unmarked tow trucks on campus to opposite-sex visitation in the dorms, he was devoted to journalism and to his job as editor.

“Like many of the student journalists at that time, I not only worked there after class; I did most of my studying there, and ate meals there, and even slept there more often than anyone should,” Goodgame said.

Stephanie Saul was on Goodgame’s staff at the DM and is now a staff writer at The New York Times.

“Danny’s old Volkswagen van was pretty much always parked at the DM offices,” Saul said.

Fred Anklam, formerly senior night editor at USA Today, also was one of Goodgame’s DM staffers. “Dan always pushed us to look for the bigger story,” Anklam said. “He was constantly looking at everyday things around campus and trying to get to the bottom of them.”

After graduating from Ole Miss, Goodgame went to work at the Tampa Tribune as the night police reporter. He worked the nightshift, 6 p.m. to 3 a.m., for $125 a week driving around to “whatever was the bloodiest crime going on at the moment.” But instead of going home at the end of his shift, he would drive to the loading dock and watch the papers come off the presses, “still warm, like fresh bread.”

With a reporter’s notebook and dimes to dial the copy desk in his back pocket, Dan Goodgame loved his job.

After working at the Tampa Tribune and the Miami Herald for a few years, Dan was named a Rhodes scholar and left for Oxford University. He knew that he wanted to be a foreign

Journalism to me was the perfect excuse to engage my curiosity, meet people, ask lots of questions, tell interesting stories and sometimes shake things up.”

correspondent and a war correspondent, so he got his master’s in International Relations. While at Oxford, he took full advantage of his opportunity and played on the varsity golf team and rowed competitively. He also traveled around Europe with Marcia, who would later become his wife.

After Goodgame finished his time at Oxford, he went on to become one of the youngest foreign correspondents for Knight Ridder newspapers, one of the youngest Washington correspondents for Time magazine, and its youngest Washington bureau chief. While covering the first President Bush for Time, he wrote a book,

“Marching in Place: The Status Quo Presidency of George Bush,” along with Michael Duffy.

Goodgame eventually became the editor of Fortune Small Business, a startup magazine aimed at small business owners. He is now vice president for executive communications at Rackspace, a “major cloud computing company based in San Antonio, with 6,000 employees on four continents and 300,000 business customers in 120 countries.”

Aside from being an exceptional reporter, many of Goodgame’s colleagues and friends would say that he is loyal to the core and is the definition of a true friend and family man. Nancy Harrelson Akin, a longtime friend of Goodgame’s who was at Ole Miss at the same time, is an only child, and she imagines that she “loves Dan Goodgame like people love their brothers.” Akin describes Goodgame as humble, brilliant and without an arrogant bone in his body. “He is just wonderful,” Akin said. “I remember when he sent me a letter from the QEII when he was on his way to England and when he sent me a cake on my 18th birthday. My hope is for everyone to have a friend like Dan Goodgame.” Former Ole Miss faculty member Jere Hoar, who Goodgame considers to be the professor who challenged him the most during his entire academic career, said, “I have been fortunate to have a lot of friendships that have lasted with my students, and if Dan Goodgame is your friend, he stays your friend.” Akin says that if Goodgame were to list out his resume, it would read that he is a father and husband first and then a part-time writer. Goodgame now splits his time between San Antonio and Connecticut, working and spending time with his wife and adult children. “Dan has many things to be proud of,” said Ron Farrar, chair of the Department of Journalism from 1973- 1977. “And certainly his years at Ole Miss and his editorship of the DM should rank high on the list.” The author is a senior, broadcast journalism major from Jackson, Mississippi.

Profiles

WIL HAMPTON

By Samantha Mitchell

It was a blend of passions that brought Muncie, Indiana, native Wil Hampton (’84) to the front doors of Farley Hall. Today he is back in his home state as executive director of Athletic Events, Sponsorship and Marketing at Marian University.

“When I was just a little kid, you know eight or nine years old,

I used to watch the local newscast, and I remember walking into my mom and dad’s kitchen, saying I’m going to be the sportscaster on Channel 8 News,” Hampton said. “I used to pretend to broadcast games as I flipped through my baseball cards.”

In fact, if it were not for his passion for baseball, Hampton’s interest in Ole Miss and the journalism program may never have been ignited. Hampton started off playing on the baseball team at a small college in Salem, West Virginia.

“The goal for me was to transfer to play baseball at Ole Miss,”

Hampton said. “I never quite got there, but that’s what originally peaked my interest, and I fell in love with the southern charm.”

It provided just the opportunity Hampton needed to visit the campus and learn about the Department of Journalism. He immediately saw potential and opportunity. Hampton attended Ole

Miss from 1980 to 1984, with a focus on broadcast journalism.

“When I started school there in the early 1980s, the Journalism

Department was more about the print side and PR, with a little bit of marketing,” Hampton said. “There weren’t very many of us [broadcasters], and we used to sit in a room across from The Daily Mississippian, and we had one camera — but we would create a newscast.”

It is important now more than ever to be a well-rounded journalist.”

The Student Media Center created a news studio in Farley Hall and eventually started to produce live newscasts, as well as a sports show called “After the Buzzer.” The show aired every Thursday night and students found sponsors. During his time there, Hampton did interviews with the coaches and play-by-play of the football games, and live-to-tape shows that played the prior weekends’ game every Tuesday. Hampton even received the opportunity to interview Archie Manning about his time at Ole Miss.

“Dr. Norton was a huge supporter of the [television] studio and really wanted us to get something out of the program,” Hampton said. “He really wanted to build a first-rate TV production station [for the school]. They said, go play TV, and we did.”

“It was exhilarating to watch the students create a news show and set a standard for NewsWatch that continues to this day,” Norton said. “It never would have happened without Jim Pratt. He worked intensely to help each student optimize his or her potential.”

Hampton received the opportunity to start his first job after college a month before his graduation. Working at WTVA in Tupelo, Mississippi, was the first stepping-stone, and he soon met his future wife of now 27 years, Becky, who is from Tupelo. They have three children.

Hampton spent 24 years on the set of different television stations and assisting in productions in various studios. He can recount many opportunities that he has been handed, as well as the experiences he was able to live out, including but certainly not limited to: 17 or 18 Daytona 500s, 10 to 12 Indy 500s, 10 Final Fours for basketball, and a few World Series. He still remembers, as though it were yesterday, being hired away to a bigger studio for the first time.

“They immediately liked me, because I was on the phone with them accepting the job as I was editing a lead story for my current job,” Hampton said. “I guess it was because I wasn’t going to let a new job keep me from getting a lead story out there.”

The leap of faith in his life was moving into sports marketing and communications. Hampton started doing freelance work for the Indianapolis Colts in his spare time, which eventually allowed him to assume a new role practically overnight.

“The Colts were just a really neat opportunity,” Hampton said. “I had already produced a couple of their shows, like their post game TV show, so I was already a part of the Colts family. It was an opportunity to try something different.”

Hampton assumed the full-time role as the director of pro

duction for the Colts in September 2009. In his time with the team, he helped to produce the game day show for three and a half years and even received a championship ring in 2010. He loved the opportunity that it presented. It also benefitted his family because it allowed him to work more “normal” hours.

In May 2013, Hampton left the Indianapolis Colts to become executive director of Athletic Events, Sponsorship and Marketing at Marian University in Indianapolis.

“I was blessed with the opportunity to work for Marian University, because it is a Catholic university and my faith and family are paramount in my life,” Hampton said. “It is still a passion of mine to tell a story, and I get to help the student athletes here, which is a neat thing to do in this stage of my life.”

At Marian, Hampton not only is able to continue in the field of sports marketing and communications, but also to participate in what he loves: TV production. He hosts a Marian University TV show every week and does sideline reporting on the weekends for the university.

“Follow your passion and your dreams, and embrace the technology and ever-changing world,” Hampton advised. “It is important now more than ever to be a well-rounded journalist.”

The author is an integrated marketing communications graduate student from Tampa, Florida.

Profiles

MARY LYNN KOTZ

Author and journalist Mary Lynn Booth Kotz pronunciation, learned by being curious. It was a magic time for her. (’56) had a burning ambition: to become editor “Nobody knew I was 15,” Kotz recalled. “Our home in of a major national magazine. Carefully, she Mathiston always was filled with books. I’d already devoured followed every step plotted by her mentor, Dr. novels and short stories and seen dozens of Hollywood movSam Talbert, chairman of the Department of ies. And I’d imagined just how to act sophisticated!” Journalism at Ole Miss. First, grad school in Mary Lynn Booth “passed” for 22 as she reported for View magmagazine journalism at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, then azine, sang in Tokyo’s Hibiya Hall, was a foreign “extra” in Japanese after two years gaining experience in Des Moines at Better Homes movies and made friendships ranging from Japanese students to & Gardens, she would take her upgraded credentials to New York. international diplomats.

“‘Dr. Sam’ urged me to collect professional recommendations At Sophia, she says that her mind “expanded 10 years and personal introductions there before moving,” Kotz recalled. — stretching farther than I had guessed was possible.”

After her “scouting trip,” she came within a month of leavHer older classmates came from the armed services and from ing for Manhattan — with an apartment to share, new friends the embassies. She eagerly planned for her next semester, but her waiting and a job offer at Time-Life. Instead, her life and castudent visa had expired. She had to return to the States to have reer in journalism have taken twists, turns — and surprises. it renewed. Her visa application was approved, but then came

A friend from grad school brought a cub reporter to a party in a jolting surprise: Her mother, the formidable Myrtle Booth of

Des Moines in December 1958. A Marine Corps officer fresh from Mathiston, had other plans for her 17-year-old daughter. She had service in Japan, he, too, loved blues, jazz, literature and theater. enrolled and paid an entire year’s tuition for her at Blue Moun

“I said I’d never consider a newspaper reporter, exalting the nobiltain, a Baptist women’s college in north Mississippi. A talented ity of journalism while griping about his salary — but I may have to musician herself, Mrs. Booth’s ambition was for her only daughsupport this one because he’ll win a Pulitzer Prize someday,” she told ter to be choir director for First Baptist Church in Jackson. her Iowa roommate. “He did — and every other prize in journalism.” But after her experiences in Japan, Mary Lynn Booth had wider

Mary Lynn Kotz has yet to live in New York. Nevertheless, she aspirations — she was determined to become a journalist — or has met — or surpassed — Dr. Talbert’s high expectations for perhaps an opera singer — or maybe both. Two weeks before school her success as a journalist. In a highly productive career, she has was to start, a high school friend drove her to Oxford, where she written four critically acclaimed books, including two New York walked unannounced into the admissions office at Ole Miss and

Times best-sellers, as well as dozens of feature articles for national came out with a last-minute scholarship to attend the university. magazines. She also has achieved success in a parallel career as a Arriving on campus as a sophomore, she signed up for a journalsinger and actress. Her many contributions to public service include ism class and immediately found a friend and mentor in Dr. Sam a long record of helping her alma mater and its Meek School of Talbert, who encouraged Kotz to focus her wide-ranging interests

Journalism and New Media to achieve further distinction. and skills as a feature writer, to tell the life stories of people who

Mary Lynn Booth came to Ole Miss out of another unexpected made a difference in society. But first, he recommended her for turn. After graduating at 15 from Mathiston High School as valedica summer job in advertising at the McComb Enterprise-Jourtorian, she received a gift that turned into a life-altering experience. nal. At summer’s end, editor/publisher Oliver Emmerich offered

Her older brother Robert, an English-language magazine and book 18-year-old Kotz a full-time job as advertising manager of his publisher in Japan, gave her as a graduation present a trip to Tokyo newspaper. Instead, she went back for her senior year and confor the summer. At summer’s end, she stayed. She enrolled in the tinued her whirlwind of academic and extracurricular pursuits.

International Division of Sophia University, a venerable Jesuit instiDriven by restless energy, insatiable curiosity and ambition, tution, which offered English-language classes in the evenings. For she took 23 course hours a semester and earned enough credits to almost two years, she wrote for the magazines, became fluent in Japfulfill a double major in journalism and Spanish literature, as well anese — and skilled at negotiating the sequence of subway stops and as minors in English and advertising. She served as editorial page transfers from one end of Tokyo to another. An American girl was a editor and later business manager of the weekly Mississippian, curiosity. “Medi-Booo-su,” as she introduced herself with Japanese studied vocal music and played leading roles in Ole Miss opera and

theater productions. She toured with the University Chorus, in which she was featured in the Ole Miss Sextette. She even found time to write and serve on the Mademoiselle magazine College Board, for which she modeled at Goldsmith’s in Memphis.

Jim Autry, editor of the Mississippian in 1955, was astounded when he discovered how many other roles she was playing on campus besides being his editorial page editor.

“Mary Booth was like a classic polymath,” he said. “That is, someone capable of mastering and excelling at a number of different skills at the same time.”

Named to academic and leadership honoraries, Kotz graduated, and Dr. Talbert steered her straight to a reporting job with the Memphis bureau of United Press (later to become UPI). The small staff occupied a tiny office in The Commercial Appeal building, and the reporters had to double as Teletype operators.

“We had the only radio-TV wire in the Mid-South at the time — and the ceaseless demands of getting letter-perfect copy ready for the announcers to read every hour on the half hour,” Kotz said.

Again, with Talbert’s guidance, she left the “story-every-minute” UP for an assistantship in the magazine journalism graduate program at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Then, as hoped, she landed a job with the Meredith Publishing Company in Des Moines as news bureau editor for Better Homes and Gardens and Successful Farming magazines. Two years later, she was publicity manager for the Meredith Corporation and poised to head for New York when she met and married Nick Kotz, a Des Moines Register reporter. In 1964, with three-year old son Jack in tow, they moved to Washington, D.C., where Nick worked in the Washington bureau of the Des Moines Register and later as a reporter on the national staff of The Washington Post.

As a newcomer to Washington, Kotz at first juggled roles as wife and mother, freelance writer, professional actress and singer and a volunteer in the White House. Working in the Curator’s office during the Lyndon Johnson Administration, she researched and created a White House motion picture library, depicting the history of the Presidency on film. A new friendship with J.B. West, chief usher (administrative officer) of the White House led to her first book. Published in 1973, Upstairs at the White House immediately soared to the top of the New York Times best-seller list where it stayed for 57 weeks, sold two million copies and bought her family a farm in Virginia. In 2014, 41 years later, her saga about the lives of six First Families in the White House, re-emerged as an e-book and again made The New York Times best-seller list.

The White House book also headed her in a new direction. The publisher of ARTnews magazine in New York phoned her at home in Washington. “I loved your book,” he said. “I want you to write for my magazine.” Many cover stories followed, about art and the lives of artists. One about Robert Rauschenberg, the pioneer art-changer of the second half of the 20th century, led to the biography Rauschenberg: Art and Life. She has lectured about Rauschenberg and other artists at museums and universities throughout the United States. Her vivid writing about art was honored in 2013 when the Virginia Museum of Fine Art and the Library of Virginia joined to create “Art in Literature: the Mary Lynn Kotz

Award,” a unique annual international prize for writing about art.

Marvella, published in 1979, became another Mary Lynn Kotz best-seller. It tells the story of how Marvella Bayh, a U.S. senator’s wife, became an important leader in the fights against breast cancer and for women’s rights. Kotz co-authored, with husband Nick Kotz, A Passion for Equality, a history of the civil rights movement in the North, as well as in the South. She also has edited — or rewritten — each of her husband’s other books.

By the time Kotz was inducted into the Ole Miss Alumni Hall of Fame and received the Ole Miss Distinguished Alumni Award and the Silver Em Award, she had earned distinction as an author, as a professional actress and singer and as an effective citizen advocate for causes ranging from mental health to historic preservation to civil rights. A founder and current board member of the National Archives Foundation, she helped lead the transformation of the National Archives building in Washington into a showcase for exhibits and lectures about American history.

As an Ole Miss alumna, she served on the founding advisory board of the university’s Center for Southern Culture. She now serves on the Board of Visitors for the Meek School of Journalism and New Media, where in 1973 she created the Mary Lynn Kotz Scholarship to help minority and low-income journalism students. Many of her scholarship students have achieved national prominence. She conceived and helped organize the university’s sponsorship of the historic 1987 National Conference on the Media and the Civil Rights Movement. And she has been a loyal contributor to the University of Mississippi Foundation.

At present, she is researching and writing a new chapter for the third edition of Rauschenberg: Art and Life. And she also is considering a memoir about her coming of age in Mississippi and Japan.

Profiles

NEWELL TURNER

By Debbie Nelson

Newell Turner (’82) was raised to be a rebel, an Ole Miss Rebel.

“It was exciting to come to Ole Miss,” Turner said. “It was a part of my family and a part of my cultural experience growing up. In fact, there was really never any option other than Ole Miss. It’s a good thing I liked it!”

Completing his double major in Journalism and Southern Studies a semester ahead of his class in December 1982, Turner remained in

Mississippi, accepting a public relations position with Hospital Corporation of America, a company newly managing King’s Daughters

Hospital in Yazoo City.

Ever the rebel, he decided to quit public relations and head for law school in 1984, but he found it to be very difficult.

“It’s what I felt everyone thought I should do,” Turner said. “I hadn’t started living my life, didn’t know what I wanted.

“I studied, banging my head against the wall, just to do OK,”

Turner said. “I don’t regret the experience of the year and a half of legal training. What ended up being not right for me helped me find my right path.”

Dean Will Norton remembered, “He was going to law school, didn’t like it, so he came over here and asked about our magazine program. I introduced him to Samir.”

The Service Journalism emphasis had just been created in the

Department of Journalism.

“My first impression of Newell was in Journalism 273, the editing by design class which combined the art of design with the art of journalism,”

Husni said. “After assigned to design a spread — two facing pages of the magazine — one just jumped out at me. I was stunned by the quality of the art, the design, the neatness. Even the drawing of the picture was like,

‘Wow!’ Needless to say that assignment was Newell Turner’s.”

What ended up being not right for me helped me find my right path.”

Turner explained, “I was taking Samir’s magazine design class when I realized I had really found my place, I found the thing that came so naturally to me. I’d grown up loving magazines. It was like I wasn’t even working. ”

Turner experienced a defining moment shortly after Dorothy Kalins, founding editor of Metropolitan Home magazine, came to speak to Husni’s class.

“Newell asked very sharp questions that showed his knowledge, talent and passion for this industry,” Husni said. “You know, any smart editor does not let that go by. Ms. Kalins called me and said, ‘Samir, I have an opening for an editorial assistant. I want to offer it to Newell Turner.’”

Like an athlete recruited directly to the NFL, Turner was urged to grab the opportunity. Husni told Turner, “Those knocks don’t come often. A graduate degree is not going to add anything. If I were you, I would take the job. Quit your graduate program. Go!”

“You’ll learn everything you’ll need on the job,” Turner recalls Husni saying. “I’m very proud I made an A in Samir’s magazine class.” He felt validated in his choice to focus on magazines.

Clearly proud of Turner’s decision, Husni said, “He was courageous enough to listen to the advice, quit the graduate program and go. The rest, of course, is history.”

Though Turner now wishes he earned his master’s degree, Norton echoed Husni’s wise counsel. Today he is a top executive in the magazine industry.

“He did so well, he immediately got the position,” Norton said. “He might not have gotten where he is had he waited to graduate. He knew so much by that time. Clearly, he obtained a graduate education by working for Dorothy Kalin.”

In the summer of 1985, Turner joined the staff of Metropolitan Home magazine. After five years, Turner moved to New Orleans, then to Dallas doing freelance work, but maintaining a connection to Metropolitan Home. A few years later, Turner remembers, “I woke up one morning and said, ‘I love publishing. Why did I leave NY?’” He reached out to the new editor in chief and quickly resumed his position with Metropolitan Home for two more years. He then served four years as style director, helping to revive Conde Nast’s House & Garden, which had been closed for a period of time.

During the first Internet bubble, Turner left print publishing to work for a digital incubator firm on a travel website called Room 12. There he found the company reinvented the business plan every

week, because of competition from newly launched Expedia and Travelocity. After a year the website shut down. His take-away from the experience was discovering the power of collaboration between editorial and business in publishing.

Turner’s pivotal choice was to return to magazines, founding a local, high-quality home and design magazine for a micro-audience — specifically the resort communities of the Hamptons on Long Island. It was a busy four years, launching two more magazines, spinoffs from the first, in three years.

“I’m very proud to say those magazines still exist,” Turner said.

The look and style of the work he was doing caught the attention of House Beautiful. In 2006, Turner was hired as style director to resuscitate the ailing publication.

“It took just two years to turn the business around to a profitable state, and House Beautiful turns 120 next year,” Turner said.

In 2010, he was promoted to editor-in-chief.

Looking at the fluid movement in Turner’s career, Norton observed, “He advanced from one position to the next, and now he’s a major player at the Hearst Corporation. His gift is graphics and visuals. He’s just so astute. He learned the whole business. And yet, when you talk to him, he’s just like he was as a student. You’d never know he was a major player in the magazine business. A humble guy. Comes from a distinguished Delta family in Belzoni, Mississippi, the Catfish Capital. It’s really neat to see somebody become a leader in his profession by hard work and by being really smart. Didn’t get there just by being somebody’s friend. Here’s a guy who remembers his roots, cares about his roots, and yet has achieved a great deal, but

doesn’t act like he’s a hotshot.”

Husni recalled, “When House Beautiful won the General Excellence Award under Newell’s leadership, I got a text message as he walked toward the stage. ‘Thank you, Dr. Husni. It all started in your class.’ I don’t think there’s a more rewarding moment than that.”

Turner has paid it forward by offering opportunities to Ole Miss students.

“We’ve had some wonderful interns from Ole Miss in the last few years here in my editorial group, some really terrific students,” Turner said. “I will say very proudly they have impressed, if not blown away, my staff with their commitment, diligence and professionalism.”

“He’s mentored a lot of Ole Miss students who have come after him,” Husni said. “In fact, his latest hire was Clint Smith, editor-in-chief of Veranda, who also was one of my students.”

After orchestrating a core reorganization at Hearst, Turner now serves as group editorial director overseeing House Beautiful, Elle Decor, Veranda, Country Living, and this year, re-launching Metropolitan Home magazine, which had been closed for five years.

Turner’s world has come full circle.

“It’s exciting because I really love that creative collaboration between the editorial side and the business side and making what we do — treating it like a business, but also treating it like an art form which is what I believe magazine-making is. There’s a way to do the two things together that can be very successful, and I like to think that’s where we are today.”

The author graduated in May 2015 with a Bachelor of General Studies, minoring in journalism, political science, and legal studies.

Profiles

SCOTT WARE

By Molly Brosier

When he was 15, Scott Ware (’75) had no idea that a suggestion from a classmate would launch a journalism career that spanned 39 years and the editorships of three newspapers.

“I was pretty lucky,” Ware said. “Things were put in front of me, and I said, ‘Yes, I will do that,’ or, ‘Sure, I will do that.’ It wasn’t like I knew that this would lead to a career in journalism and that this was my life calling, but it happened that way.”

Ware was in the 10th grade at Meridian (Miss.) High School when he was recruited by a friend to work on the school newspaper. That led to his attending a journalism camp at Ole Miss during the summer of 1969.

“It was the summer that Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and we were on campus at the time … I came away from that summer inspired about journalism and the world around me.

“I came back for my junior year and was very involved in the paper, then became editor my senior year,” he said. “It was a chain of events that I still attribute to that summer at the journalism camp at Ole Miss.”

Because of his editorial position at the school newspaper, the local newspaper, the Meridian Star, offered Ware a job on weekends and during the summer. The job was initially for proofreading, but Ware was then given opportunities to do sports reporting and news reporting, all while he was still in high school.

He wasn’t sure where he wanted to go to college, so he spent his freshman year at Meridian Junior College.

“When I enrolled they saw that I had been editor of the high school

The journalists who develop mastery of the best of both ‘new’ and ‘old’ will define the future of good journalism.”

paper, and they said, Would you like to be editor of the junior college paper. We don’t have anybody? So I said sure, and then I won the Mississippi Junior College Press Association Scholarship. So I started at Ole Miss in my sophomore year and part of that scholarship requirement was that I be a part of the newspaper staff and work on The Daily Mississippian, which I was eager to do anyway,” Ware said.

Once at the University of Mississippi, Ware dove head first into journalism.

“I had the advantage of having worked at a newspaper when I began working at The Daily Mississippian, so I was able to take leadership roles,” Ware said.

The most memorable story Ware has of working for The Daily Mississippian was when the university fired brothers Bruiser and Billy Kinard from the athletics program. Bruiser was the athletics director and Billy was the head football coach at the time.

“They (Ole Miss) brought back Johnny Vaught, the legendary football coach who had retired three years earlier for health problems. Billy Kinard was hugely unpopular with students and alumni so when they (the university) announced his firing it was a huge story. There was a huge pep rally on campus, everyone was so excited that the Kinards were leaving and that Johnny Vaught was returning,” Ware said.

In the spring semester of Ware’s junior year he decided to run for editor of The Daily Mississippian for his senior year. He ran against two friends, Greg Brock and Dan Goodgame, with Goodgame winning. Ware wasn’t disappointed and continued on to be the frontpage editor his senior year.

Without knowing it, a new opportunity was about to present itself.

Ware explained, “The Journalism Department had made an arrangement with The Commercial Appeal in Memphis to provide an intern on a semester basis, not like a summer intern. It would have been January through May of my senior year, and it was a competition so many of us applied. Two of the finalists went up to Memphis for the final interview, and I think Will Norton (current dean of the Meek School) drove up with the other finalist, and I was selected. So rather than going back to campus for my (spring semester) senior year, I moved to Memphis, got an apartment, and nine hours semester credit and reporter pay. That was an amazing experience.”

Although Ware attended Ole Miss for only two and a half years, he learned many valuable lessons and had many great experiences while on campus. After graduation, Ware went back to work for the E. W. Scripps Company in Memphis.

Otis Sanford, who holds the journalism chair of excellence at the University of Memphis, was a classmate of Ware’s as well as a fellow Scripps journalist.

“I think I learned more from Scott after we left Ole Miss,” Sanford said. “He was one of my editors and bosses at The Commercial Appeal, and I think I learned a lot from him about interviewing, spotting trends in the news and writing with more flair. It was under Scott’s leadership at The Commercial Appeal that the newspaper started to put more emphasis on minority affairs reporting.”

Ware confessed, “Many of the early years of my career I felt in over my head, and I was given more opportunities and taking on more

responsibility, and I said, ‘I don’t know why they think I can do this.’ But one of the lessons I would give to current students is that when you are given an opportunity, say yes, whether you think you can do it or not.”

Ware went on to become editor of three Scripps newspapers — the English- language newspaper in Puerto Rico called The San Juan Star; The Albuquerque Tribune in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the Kitsap Sun outside of Seattle, Washington.

During Ware’s tenure at The Albuquerque Tribune, the paper was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and won other awards for distinguished reporting, including two National Headliner awards.

“Even though we gained a lot of national recognition for our work in Albuquerque, I was really proud of some of the things we did at the Kitsap Sun,” Ware said. “We had done a huge project with the methamphetamine epidemic back in the early 2000s, and we received a lot of recognition for that. That was a project that ran over about eight months and we did more than 40 in-depth stories. It was a huge accomplishment for a staff that had been unhappy in the year or two previous.”

Jeff Brody, one of Ware’s managing editors at the Kitsap Sun, said, “Scott renewed my faith in newsroom leadership after a series of experiences with less-than-inspiring editors and managing editors. It was great to have Scott as my last editor. I know that under his leadership, we did everything we could to excel as a local newspaper.”

“I’ve had the opportunity as an editor to be associated with some really talented people,” Ware said. “One of my guiding philosophies is to give talented people the opportunity to do good work and get out of the way. That is what you want in a newspaper: talent, motivation and the willingness and ambition to do good work.”

Ware worked in the journalism world for 39 years starting with his time at the Meridian Star. Thirty-four of those years were spent with the E. W. Scripps Company.

“In 2008 those were pretty bleak times for newsrooms,” Ware said. “Newspapers were cutting back hugely. I was laying people off it seemed like every year. I didn’t want to feel like I was bailing out, but I was 55 years old, and all I had done was newspaper work. This was a good time to think about trying some new things, leveraging some skills I acquired in the newspaper business and using my experience and knowledge to try something. I didn’t have a clear cut plan, but I thought I had a chance for a second act.”

Ware became a media consultant in Washington State for a couple of years.

Then his wife had a job opportunity in San Francisco.

“She had followed me all over creation as an editor’s wife, so I said ‘Let’s do this — you go to San Francisco, and I’ll follow with the kids, and I’ll start to try and make something new happen for myself’,” he said.

Ware moved to Sonoma, California, just north of San Francisco for six months and became a part of the Sonoma International Film Festival and chairman of the board.

“One of the board members was involved in a new venture here in San Francisco called TrustedPeer, and he encouraged me to become one of the founders and principals,” Ware said. It is essentially a digital business-to-business consulting platform. Businesses and business professionals can connect for consulting on demand online through our platform. We are providing an alternative to the traditional consulting where you have to go through a lot of process and often get more consulting than you need.”

Ware explained, “Now my part, as vice president of publishing, is developing a business library. We develop a very in-depth content package for each of our experts and that is part of the platform. So publishing is a critical component of the platform, and I have a staff of about 15 contract editors who work for us and work with the experts to develop their content, and these editors are all experienced business journalists.

“I am working with journalists again, and I am delighted about that. It is not traditional journalism, but our values are credibility, professionalism and really high quality. We have a very high standard for the experts we bring into the platform and also for the editors that work with them.”

Ware advises students who are pursing journalism to “know that you bring a huge asset as digital natives to the evolving world of digital journalism.

“Embrace that and run with it. Social media is your world, and it is your generation that will figure out how to get the most good out of it, while minimizing its downsides. At the same time, embrace the traditional values of credibility and context, in-depth and investigative reporting, creative writing and visual storytelling.

“The journalists who develop mastery of the best of both ‘new’ and ‘old’ will define the future of good journalism,” he said.

The author is a senior, integrated marketing communications major from Amarillo, Texas.

Profiles

REBECCA JONES WEST

By Lindsey Andrews

When people have an opportunity to achieve their dreams, they usually consider themselves lucky or blessed. Becky Jones West (’78) considers herself both.

West was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and then lived in Gulfport for a few years. The daughter of a father who was a coach and a mother who was a teacher, her family relocated to Fulton, where she grew up on the Itawamba Community College (ICC) campus. Having been raised in Mississippi, attending the University of Mississippi always seemed like the right choice. In the fall of 1974, West began her freshman year at Ole Miss. At the time, journalism and broadcast were in separate departments. Although she majored in radio and television broadcast, West felt she “needed broad exposure” and minored in journalism. She explained that this gave her a sort of “prehistoric integrated marketing communications” background.

Rose Jackson Flenorl, manager of social responsibility for FedEx Global Citizenship and an Ole Miss graduate and friend, said Jones was “laser focused” as a student.

“As undergraduates, I felt there always was a target in her sights,” Flenorl said. “She had a plan, she worked her plan, and she reached her goals.”

After graduation, West was hired at what is now Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in Memphis, Tennessee. She was responsible for all internal communications and eventually took on the role of marketing director for regional hospitals in three states, all managed or owned by Methodist. She spearheaded an effort to rebrand the City of Memphis Hospital into the Regional Medical Center at Memphis (The MED) and to launch the Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center.

“It was one of the most gratifying things I’ve done because we were able to positively affect the way critically injured patients in the region were triaged,” West said.

She was responsible for communicating externally to the region the new role of the Trauma Center, and communicating internally the steps required to treat patients in the Trauma Center within the “golden hour” — the one-hour period after an emergency, during which prompt medical treatment provides the best outcomes. After the Trauma Center project, West worked for First Tennessee Bank as the director of public relations and community relations.

West left First Tennessee Bank in 1986 to start WestRogers Strategic Communications, one of the first advertising and public relations agencies owned by women.

Former assistant vice chancellor for public relations and marketing and associate professor of journalism Ed Meek said West “quickly became a power player demonstrating great commitment, creativity, business knowledge and hard work.”

An early WestRogers community campaign featuring MLB and NFL star Bo Jackson presented Jackson with the opportunity to become a spokesperson for Nike. Another community campaign featuring Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway helped position Hardaway for more success. This national exposure helped put WestRogers on the map.

As an agency, “we try to do things many other people can’t, and we like to take advantage of opportunities for our clients,” West said.

She explained how the University of Mississippi set her on the path to success.

“As a student, they made me feel like I could do anything I wanted to do … [The school] has incredible teachers and administrators.”

Will Norton, the dean of the Meek School of Journalism and New Media, and the late Jan Hawks, the last dean of women at Ole Miss, were both mentors to West. They instilled in her the confidence to achieve goals she set for herself, professionally and personally.

“Ole Miss is a place that is rooted in relationships,” West said. “I was fortunate to go to Ole Miss because it allowed me to be prepared in my career. That preparation, along with the relationships from Ole

Miss, has certainly been a significant part of my success.”

Despite the achievements she attributes to encouragement from professors at Ole Miss, West said her greatest success is her family.

“I know everyone says that, but it’s really hard to own your own business, to be under stress with job demands and also be fully pres- ent with your children and husband when you’re juggling so many other things,” she said.

Her son Ben and her daughter Taylor also are Ole Miss alum- ni. Ben has an undergraduate degree and a law degree, and Taylor earned a bachelor’s and master’s in accounting. West’s love for the university definitely has been a family affair. Even her parents, Ben and Bobbye Jones, received their undergraduate and master’s degrees from Ole Miss.

West is a business professional who continues to embrace new and unique challenges. One WestRogers client is developing and launching diagnostic heart care centers in China. West’s job is to create and im- plement strategies to inform Chinese citizens about these heart centers, which are the first of their kind in China. She explains that “it is a phenomenal ride” because the communications boil down to clearly conveying the purpose of the centers — improving quality of life.

Because the idea of preventive health care is not prevalent in China, the heart centers are “introducing a new concept of caring for people with coronary disease.”

In addition to her career, West is passionate about the advance- ment of women and tries to help women become self-sufficient. As a founding member of the board of directors, West helped estab- lish the Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis to achieve long-lasting social change for women and children. It is an ongoing effort to promote “career advancement for women so they are able to self-sustain,” she explained.

Another cause West is passionate about is helping students attend college. West believes that it is imperative that Ole Miss students have more opportunities for scholarships, and she is working with the Ole Miss Women’s Council to increase the number available.

“There is an ongoing effort with the Ole Miss Women’s Council to offer scholarships and mentorship programs to enhance the lives of our scholars,” she said.

West recently was named one of 25 “Super Women in Business” for 2014 by the Memphis Business Journal. As a woman with substantial expertise in business, West had some advice for stu- dents looking to pursue a career in advertising, public relations or marketing: “They can’t really follow their dreams unless their dreams match up with their abilities. They must ask themselves, ‘What are my assets?’”

West pointed out that by doing this, students will be able to plan more carefully and take advantage of more opportunities to achieve success. Even if it’s not their major, West also recommends that all stu- dents take integrated marketing communication or journalism courses.

“Having the ability to communicate can be one of your strongest assets,” she said. “Graduates I see doing well are the ones with the ability to communicate.”

The author is a senior, integrated marketing communications major from Collinsville, Illinois.