Kentucky Journalism Hall of fame inductees 2015

Steve Burgin Investigative reporter and weekend anchor during more than 30 years with WLKY-TV in Louisville. He is known for his fearless reporting and his relentless efforts to hold politicians, other government officials and community institutions accountable. He was the first Kentucky broadcast journalist to receive the Silver Circle Award for lifetime achievement from the Ohio Valley Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He won a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for his reports on Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Greene in the mid-1980s and the Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award for Investigative Reporting for a series on Jeffersontown Mayor Dan Ruckriegel. He has won five Emmy Awards and numerous awards from The Associated Press and the Louisville Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He also worked at CNN, Atlanta; WAVE-TV, Louisville; WFAA-TV, Dallas; WBIR-TV, Knoxville; WTVF, Nashville; and KCTV (now KLST), San Angelo, Tex.

Judy Jenkins Reporter and columnist for The Gleaner in Henderson, Ky., from 1963 until her retirement in 2007, after which she wrote occasionally as a freelancer and guest columnist until her death in 2013. Her gift for making people at ease earned her invitations into their lives and stories, and she endeared herself to readers with accounts of her own klutziness. She won numerous Kentucky Press Association competitions, including eight Best Column awards. She received seven Barry Bingham Awards from the Kentucky Psychiatric Association for “exceptional efforts to bring information on mental illness to the people of Kentucky.” That work also won honors from the state Cabinet for Human Resources, the Green River Regional Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board and the Henderson Mayor’s Committee on Employment of the Disabled. A graduate of the University of Kentucky’s Northwest Center, now Henderson Community College, she posthumously received its Distinguished Alumni Award.

Jeffrey A. Marks A television executive since 1993, he is president and general manager of WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, . His career in broadcast news began in 1971 as news director at WBKY (now WUKY) at the University of Kentucky, his alma mater. He was a reporter for WVLK and WLAP radio stations in Lexington, then joined WHAS in Louisville, first as a radio reporter, then editorial producer for both television and radio, and senior news producer for WHAS-TV. He then joined WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., as executive news producer. From there, he went to the Maine Broadcasting System, beginning as news director for WCSH-TV in Portland and becoming station manager before moving into executive management with WLBZ-TV in Bangor. While in Kentucky, he covered the 1974 tornadoes, the 1975 unrest over desegregation of Jefferson County schools and the 1976 Scotia coal-mine disasters in Letcher County, among other key stories.

Mark Neikirk Director of the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement at Northern Kentucky University since 2008, he was managing editor of The Cincinnati Post and The Kentucky Post during the merged paper’s extremely demanding final five years. He worked at the Post for 28 years in positions of increasing responsibility, including assistant managing editor when the two papers’ newsrooms were merged in 1995. He was a member of the newsroom management team for The Kentucky Post (night city editor, state editor, city editor), and a reporter covering all key news beats. He began his career at The Kentucky Post as an intern while in graduate school at the University of Kentucky, where he earned a history degree. During his tenure at The Kentucky Post, he led many challenges for open government and was known for his depth of knowledge, thoroughness, source development and describing complex government issues in understandable stories.

Ed Reinke An award-winning photographer for The Associated Press in Kentucky for more than 25 years, he died in 2011 from injuries suffered while on assignment at the Kentucky Speedway. He was AP’s lead photographer for critical events in Kentucky history, including the 2006 Comair crash in Lexington, the 1988 Carrollton bus crash, the 1989 Wheatcroft coal-mine disaster, and the 1989 workplace shooting at the Standard Gravure printing plant in Louisville. In addition to Kentucky stories, he covered Super Bowls, World Series, NCAA Final Fours, Olympics, professional golf championships, the Indianapolis 500, Hurricane Andrew, and President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration. He covered every Kentucky Derby from 1988 through 2011. He won numerous awards from the AP Sports Editors, including the 1992 Thomas V. DiLustro award for excellence in sports photography, and was known for his strong work ethic and collegiality with other journalists. He was born in Indiana and attended Indiana University.

Landon Wills Set a national example for editorial leadership in a small, rural county as owner of the McLean County News in 1946-72. He helped bring a hospital, factories and a dam to Calhoun. His strong editorial stands included support for the civil-rights plank of the 1948 Democratic platform and John F. Kennedy for president in 1960. He believed the editorial page was open to any topic, and he often opined on state and national issues, which cost him badly needed advertising; his wife’s teaching job helped support them and six sons, one of whom, Clyde, edited the paper briefly. In 1963 he was the subject of “Vanishing Breed,” an ABC-TV documentary premised on the declining number of weekly papers. A graduate of Kentucky Wesleyan College, he died in 1998 and won the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity from the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues in 2014.