Six added to Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame

Bill Bartleman, left, was The Paducah Sun's main government-and-politics reporter for 35 years, but the stories he enjoyed doing most for the 25,000-circulation newspaper were "stories about average people in the community," he said today as he joined the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame. He said L.J. Hortin, a journalism professor at Murray State University, reminded students that everything they wrote was important to someone, so "It doesn't matter what you write about," Bartleman said. "It's probably going into somebody's scrapbook."

Bartleman was one of six inductees this year. Others from rural journalism were Robert Carter, right, former publisher of the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville, who was instrumental in passing a state open-records law as president of the Kentucky Press Association; and the late Al Dix, who was publisher of The State Journal in the capital of Frankfort, population 25,000. Dix, below, "kept news columns fair, held officials and institutions accountable, and gave free rein to editors and editorial writers," his plaque biography says. "Confidant of state officials and community leaders, but also a reporter’s publisher."

Other inductees were Jackie Hays Bickel, a Paris, Tenn., native and longtime Louisville TV anchor who got her start at Murray State and Paducah; Ed Shadburne of Louisville, former broadcast executive in that city, Nashville and several small towns; and Tom Loftus, longtime Frankfort bureau chief for The Courier-Journal of Louisville. The Hall of Fame is sponsored by the alumni association of the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky. To download a PDF of the biographies on the inductees' plaques, click here.