Hall of Fame Inducts Six
May 30, 2010
A pioneering female broadcaster, a documentarian and leaders of newspapers large and small joined the more than 220 members of the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame at a ceremony April 17 at the Indiana Memorial Union on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington. This was the first induction event since the organization decided earlier this year to move its headquarters from DePauw University to the IU School of Journalism.
The 2010 inductees were:
James Barbieri, whose career as a reporter and editor at the Bluffton News-Banner spanned seven decades. He moved to Bluffton in 1949 after graduating from DePauw University, and outside a stint in the Army, he worked at the newspaper until his death in 2006. He was a prolific writer covering the community while also serving many years at the newspaper’s editor and for 11 years at its publisher.
Tom Cochrun, a longtime television reporter, anchor and news director in Indianapolis. He was a reporter at WISH-TV and WTHR-TV, where he won a National Emmy Award and other honors for an investigation of the Ku Klux Klan in the state. He began nine years as WTHR’s main news anchor in 1986, leaving to run his own documentary production company. He returned to WISH in 2003, spending more than three years as news director. Cochrun grew up in Indianapolis and graduated from Ball State University.
Wanda Ramey Queirolo, a Terre Haute native who became one of the country’s first female local news anchors. After she graduated from Indiana State Teachers College in 1945, Ramey moved to Oakland, Calif., where she was hired as a radio interviewer. She soon became a reporter for KPIX-TV in San Francisco, which made her an anchor of the noon news in 1959. Her reporting took her inside San Quentin prison and elsewhere before she left her anchor job in 1967. She later worked for National Educational Television, the precursor to PBS, and Voice of America. She died in August 2009.
David Stamps, executive director of the Hoosier State Press Association since 1996. Stamps was a reporter, editor and publisher at newspapers in Illinois for more than 20 years before taking over leadership of the trade group for Indiana’s daily and nondaily newspapers. He helped the organization survive significant financial difficulties while ensuring it continued as an advocate for open government laws and an educator on the role of a free press.
Randy West, editor and chief photographer of The Corydon Democrat for 35 years. Under his leadership, the Democrat won the Hoosier State Press Association’s Blue Ribbon Award for outstanding weekly newspaper 14 times. Besides mentoring many young journalists at the paper, he taught photojournalism at Indiana University-Southeast for 12 years and was a director of the National Press Photographers Association. He retired from the Democrat in 2005 and has since published a book of his photographs.
Frank Widner, a longtime reporter and editor for the Indianapolis Times and The Indianapolis Star. He left Indiana University before graduating to join the Times in 1939. He rose through the ranks from copy boy to cover numerous beats as a reporter and eventually became managing editor, a position he held when the newspaper closed in 1965. He soon joined The Star, where he eventually became assistant managing editor. He retired in 1986 and died in 1995.