The Friends of The Daily Texan inaugural winners of the 2013 Texan Hall of Fame awards are listed below.
Winners were honored at our awards ceremony on the evening of Nov. 8, 2013.
Hall of Fame inductees were chosen based on the accomplishments of their post-Texan career and their commitment to the Texan, either while working at the newspaper or as an alumni.
Legacy winners include Walter Cronkite, Willie Morris, Liz Carpenter, Lady Bird Johnson, Fritz Lanham and Helene Wilke McNaughton.
2013 inductees include Karen Tumulty, Ben Sargent, Karen Elliott House, Bill Moyers and Dick Elam.
Rising star inductee is Bryan Mealer.
About the Legacy Class inductees:
• Liz Carpenter was an author, congressional correspondent, activist and humorist. She is perhaps most remembered as press secretary to First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. She worked on The Daily Texan in the 1930s and was also elected the first woman vice president of student government.
• Walter Cronkite, the legendary CBS anchorman, was proclaimed “the most trusted man in America.” He volunteered for the Daily Texan while working for Capitol news organizations.
• Lady Bird Johnson was “Claudia Taylor” when she wrote features for The Texan in the 1930s. After her marriage to Lyndon B. Johnson, she helped shape his political career, which led to the White House. After LBJ’s presidency, she continued her passion for the environment and served as a UT regent.
• Fritz Lanham was the founding editor of The Texan in 1900. He later served more than 30 years in Congress, authoring groundbreaking trademark legislation.
• Helene Wilke McNaughton was the first female editor of The Daily Texan and helmed the publication during the controversial dismissal of UT President Homer Rainey. She later worked for Charm magazine in New York and the Houston Post.
• Willie Morris’s term as editor of The Daily Texan 1955-56 and his struggles against censorship are documented in his highly praised North Toward Home memoir. After The Texan, he was editor of The Texas Observer and Harper’s and a best-selling novelist.
About the Class of 2013 and Rising Star:
• Dick Elam, Texan editor from 1949-50, pushed for racial integration and fought hard against anticommunist hysteria. Publisher of several small newspapers, he brought real-world experience to UT’s journalism faculty. After serving as assistant dean of the UT College of Communications, he joined the University of North Carolina’s journalism program.
• Karen Elliott House, managing editor of The Daily Texan in 1969, is former publisher of the Wall Street Journal and president of Dow Jones International. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her foreign affairs reporting.
• Bill Moyers wrote for The Daily Texan in the 1950s. He was LBJ’s White House press secretary and has had a storied career as commentator and host for PBS, including Bill Moyers Journal and Moyers & Co.
• Ben Sargent, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, honed his craft penning cartoons for The Daily Texan before graduating in 1970. He was on-staff for The Austin American-Statesman for more than 30 years.
• Karen Tumulty worked on The Texan in the 1970s and continues as an active supporter of the Friends of The Daily Texan. She is a national political correspondent for The Washington Post after serving as White House correspondent for Time Magazine.
Rising Star Bryan Mealer, who worked on The Daily Texan from 1996 to 1998, is a bestselling author including The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and All Things Must Fight to Live. His freelance pieces have appeared in Harpers, Esquire, Texas Monthly and the Associated Press.
“What starts at UT changes the world, they say, and these Daily Texan staffers have indeed changed the world,” said Friends of The Daily Texan Board President Cliff Avery. “We invite the UT community to join us in celebrating their achievements in November.”
The Friends of The Daily Texan is an association for alumni of The Daily Texan and others interested in promoting the publication’s long-term sustainability as a site of student press innovation. Through mentorship, fundraising, networking and public education, Friends of The Daily Texan works alongside current Texan staffers to continue the publication’s rich tradition of journalistic excellence into the future.