Source: Gloria Freeland, 785-532-0721, gfreela@k-state.edu
Photo available: http://www.k-state.edu/media/images/aug12/Dary.jpeg
Hometown connection: Manhattan and Phillipsburg
Website: huckboyd.jmc.ksu.edu
Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012
Community media in a changing world focus of Huck Boyd Lecture by noted author, broadcaster and educator David Dary
MANHATTAN -- A respected author, broadcast journalist, historian and educator will deliver Kansas State University's 13th annual Huck Boyd Lecture in Community Media.
David Dary, a Manhattan native, will present "Community Journalism and Other Stuff in a Changing World" at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 19, in Forum Hall at the K-State Student Union. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Huck Boyd National Center for Community Media, housed in the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
In conjunction with the lecture, the university's Hale Library will open "The Dary Trails: The Library and Papers of David Dary." A reception will be from 2:30-4 p.m. Sept. 19 in the Morse department of special collections gallery on the library's fifth floor. The Dary collection contains more than 4,000 volumes related to the history of the West, ranching, Kansas and journalism. Items in the collection date from the 18th century to the present.
After earning his bachelor's degree from Kansas State University in 1956, Dary worked for WIBW in Topeka, Kan.; KWFT in Wichita Falls, Texas; CBS News in Washington, D.C.; and NBC News, also in Washington D.C. In 1967, Dary returned to Topeka and helped establish the city's second commercial TV station and the state's first UHF station, Channel 27, now KSNT, as well as released his first book, Radio News Handbook.
In 1970 he began teaching journalism classes for the University of Kansas, releasing his first book on Old West history, "The Buffalo Book," just four years later. In 1989, he was recruited to the University of Oklahoma's H.H. Herbert School of Journalism and Mass Communication as director. Dary reorganized the program into five sequences and obtained a $22 million donation from the Gaylord newspaper family, which elevated the school to college status -- renamed the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication -- and provided funds for a new multimedia facility, Gaylord Hall. He retired in 2000 and focused more on writing.
Dary has written more than 20 books; four discuss journalism and the remainder focus on Old West history. His 1981 book, "Cowboy Culture: A Saga of Five Centuries," won the Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, the Spur Award from Western Writers of America and the Best Non-Fiction Book Award from Western International. It was also a Pulitzer Prize nominee. Other honors have included the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Western Writers of America in 2002 and induction into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame in 2007.
He has written more than 200 articles on Old West history. His articles have appeared in the Kansas City Star, True West magazine, Editor and Publisher, the Denver Post, the Encyclopedia of the American West and more. He has written numerous Old West book reviews, introductions, forewords and chapters. He has served as president of Westerners International and Western Writers of America and on the board of directors for the Kansas State Historical Society, the Oklahoma State Historical Society and the International Radio-Television News Directors Association.
Dary and his wife, Sue, have been married for 56 years and live in Norman, Okla.
The Huck Boyd center has sponsored 12 previous lectures in community media. The center, founded in 1990, strives to serve and strengthen local newspapers, radio stations, cable systems and other media that play a key role in the survival and revitalization of America's small towns. Huck Boyd believed in preserving the small-town lifestyle and small-town media. Boyd, a Phillipsburg, Kan., native, published The Phillips County Review, recruited industry to the community and was active in Republican politics, both in Kansas and nationally.
"This lecture is important for the field of community journalism because it highlights the tremendous influence that community media have on the health of their communities," said Gloria Freeland, center director.
