Previous Award Recipients

2008:
   Lissa Walls Vahldiek, chief operating officer and vice president
   Southern Newspapers, Inc., Houston, Texas

In presenting the award to her, David Paxton, president and CEO of Paxton Media Group, Paducah, Ky., and president of SNPA, spoke of the high standards set by Vahldiek, saying her “dedication to newspapers was borne of family ties and has been cemented for nearly 30 years winning the respect and friendship of colleagues, employees and even rivals in the industry.”

Lissa Walls Vahldiek

Like previous Mayborn Award winners, Vahldiek grew up in the newspaper industry, and followed in the footsteps of a father, who was a giant in both the newspaper industry and in SNPA.

The late Benjamin Carmage Walls believed newspapers had the power to better their communities through strong and positive editorial page leadership. “We believe in putting more back into the communities we serve than the company takes out,” he once said of his newspaper philosophy.

Paxton said Vahldiek has maintained the values her father set for each of his company’s publications while ably adapting them in the ever-changing media landscape we find ourselves navigating today.

Paxton said, “You can hear the echo of her father’s philosophy as she says, ‘Our company’s focus is now – and has always been – on providing the best newspaper each community can support and giving publishers a high degree of control over their newspapers. We work to stay on the leading edge of trends in our industry, but local news and advertising, local commentary and local leadership are our core products and always will be.’”

As much as she has carried forth her father’s legacy, Vahldiek has blazed her own trail in the industry. She has been vice chairman of The Associated Press Board of Directors, was president of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association and chairman of the board of trustees of Trinity University.

She was just the third woman to serve as president of SNPA, and she has been a director, a trustee and a committee chair for SNPA. She is also a former chairman of the SNPA Foundation and played a key role in its successful effort to raise an endowment to permanently fund the Traveling Campus program.

She has excelled in every endeavor she has undertaken, a testament to both her abilities as a leader and her dedication to her role as chief operating officer of Southern Newspapers Inc. These qualities have always been evident to her peers.

2007:
   J. Stewart Bryan III, chairman, Media General, Richmond, Va.

Ivan V. Anderson Jr., president and CEO of Evening Post Publishing Co. in Charleston, S.C., and president of SNPA, presented the 2007 Mayborn Award to Bryan saying: “This year’s recipient has long been a driving force in the newspaper industry and a leader in the communities where his company does business.”

J. Stewart Bryan III

Bryan comes from a family steeped in the newspaper industry. His great-grandfather, his grandfather and his father all worked in the newspaper business.  

Bryan started in the family business as a teenager.  He held summer jobs in the mail room and circulation department.  He sold ads and worked as a reporter.   He also served on active duty as an infantry officer in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Today, he is chairman of a company that owns 25 daily newspapers in five states, 23 network affiliated TV stations that reach more than 32 percent of the households in the Southeast, and more than 75 online enterprises.

His company is known as a leader in convergence and technological innovation in the newspaper industry.

Bryan has served as president of SNPA, chairman of the SNPA Foundation, and most recently, he co-chaired the fund-raising drive that created the endowment to fund the free SNPA Foundation Traveling Campus programs.

Anderson said SNPA is honored to recognize “a friend and colleague who has contributed so much to his community, to our industry and to our association – a man who has shared his experience and wisdom with us with unfailing strength and humor.”

2006:
   Ashton Phelps Jr., president and publisher
   The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, La.

Victor H. Hanson III, president and publisher of the Birmingham (Ala.) News and president of SNPA, said the 2006 recipient of the Mayborn Award "has long been a driving force in his community, but his leadership became legendary in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.”

Ashton Phelps Jr.

Phelps’ team was forced to evacuate, but the storm could not curtail the paper’s commitment to its readers. The staff provided not just news, but the essential information that people needed to reassemble their lives.

Here’s a comment from one reader that sums up the job Phelps’ newspaper did:

It truly brought home to me the massive enormity of the loss that is Hurricane Katrina. The loss of lives is devastating, but the loss of basic human dignity is a tragedy of its own. I’m not sure who my heart goes out to the most: those mourning the loss of their loved ones, or those who have to live with the memories of surviving Katrina, of surviving the filth, the hunger, and the fear.

The fact is these journalists voluntarily embraced those experiences, a heroic act in and of itself. But, by listening, simply listening, to the stories of the survivors, by saying ‘your suffering matters, please let me tell others about it…’ and being the survivor’s voice in a dark and dangerous hour, they did more than just their jobs; they returned to the survivors a small measure of their human dignity. A Pulitzer Prize can’t begin to touch that. No award can.”

The Times-Picayune did, in fact, win two Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage of Katrina – one for breaking news, one for community service.

In addition, the paper also was awarded by King Juan Carlos I of Spain the third Antonio Asensio Prize for Journalism “for its extraordinary spirit of resilience and willingness to serve its readers.”

The Asensio Prize Jury also praised the newspaper for its 2002 series that warned of the community’s vulnerability to hurricanes.

Phelps is a life-long resident of New Orleans. He received his bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1967 and his law degree from Tulane University Law School in 1970. While in law school, he was a member of the Board of Student Editors of the Tulane Law Review and of the Order of the Coif.

Upon graduation from law school, he went to work for The Times-Picayune, training in the news, production, advertising and circulation departments.

He was named assistant to the publisher in 1971 and also vice president and secretary in 1975. He succeeded his father, Ashton Phelps Sr., as president and publisher on Dec. 1, 1979.

Six months after he became publisher, the morning Times-Picayune and the afternoon States-Item combined into an all-day newspaper, the Times-Picayune & States-Item. The paper was renamed The Times-Picayune in October 1986.

Phelps is a past president of SNPA and has served both on the Board of Directors of SNPA and on the Board of Trustees of the SNPA Foundation. He is a past president of the Louisiana Press Association and a member of the Board of Directors of the United Negro College Fund.

2005:
   Derek Dunn-Rankin, president, Sun Coast Media Group, Charlotte Harbor, Fla.

In presenting the award, Dolph Tillotson, president and publisher of the Galveston County (Texas) Daily News and president of SNPA, said, “It is my pleasure to honor a man who has contributed so much to our industry and to our association – a man who has shared his experience and wisdom with unfailing humility, honesty, strength and humor.”

Derek Dunn-Rankin

Dunn-Rankin began his newspaper career delivering the Miami (Fla.) News when he was 11. He edited his college newspaper and worked as a reporter, then sports editor, before transferring to the business side of the Miami News. By the time he left Landmark Corporation to start his own company in 1977, he was president of the Virginian-Pilot/Ledger-Star in Norfolk, Va.

Dunn-Rankin’s first newspaper purchase in 1977 was the Venice (Fla.) Gondolier. In 1979, when he purchased the Charlotte Sun, it was a 16-page free tabloid with four employees and operated out of a store front next door to a laudromat.  Sun Coast Media now operates the Gondolier, the Charlotte Sun, the Englewood Sun and the North Port Sun, and all but the Gondolier have become daily newspapers. Dunn-Rankin owns the only indpendent daily in Florida.

Since 1987 when the Sun began publishing seven mornings a week, the newspaper has grown 87 percent, making it the fastest growing daily in the United States, with a peak Sunday circulation of 50,000 last year. The Sun’s TV Book has been rated “Best in the Nation” for newspapers under 100,000 circulation. In the years under Dunn-Rankin’s leadership, the Gondolier often has been rated Florida’s best weekly newspaper.

Printed newspapers, however, have not been Dunn-Rankin’s only business ventures. Sunline, the newspaper’s Internet division began in 1996 and twice has been rated the best newspaper web site in the country for newspapers under 100,000 circulation. DayStar, Sun Coast’s telephone company, serves two counties and has steadily increased its market share. Sun Coast also developed software that is distributed nationally for the real estate industry.

With all his innovation, however, Dunn-Rankin has not strayed from his own community. During Hurricane Ivan last year, when newspapers were the only means of getting information to devastated communities, he provided papers to everyone, regular subscriber or not. He helped local businesses advertise that they were open after the disaster – helping prove the business community was still viable.

He gave away a million dollars of advertising to small advertisers forced to shut down, helping them to recover without additional expense. His company gave generators and mattresses to families in need and provided locations for free long distance service. He also helped consolidate the efforts of government agencies to speed relief efforts and hasten reconstruction after the disaster.

Dunn-Rankin has served as a member of the SNPA Board of Directors, as a trustee of the SNPA Foundation, as chairman of the New Media Committee and on the SNPA Editorial, Readership and First Amendment Committees. He was elected vice-chairman of the SNPA Foundation Board of Trustees earlier today. Dunn-Rankin has served on the board of directors of the Florida Press Association and was the association’s president in the early 1980s.

2004:
   Walter Hussman Jr., publisher, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Little Rock
   President, WEHCO Media, Little Rock, Ark.

"Walter Hussman is outspoken about his commitment to quality news coverage, and he believes that an emphasis on hard news and investigative reporting will keep his newspapers competitive and profitable," said  Jon Segal, president of SNPA and president of the Community Newspapers Division of Freedom Communications. 

Walter Hussman Jr.

In presenting the first Mayborn Award to Hussman, Segal said: "He believes that training is imperative for newspaper employees to succeed – and in a bold move one year ago, he made a personal contribution of $1 million to the SNPA Foundation’s endowment campaign. He sets the highest standard for future recipients of this award.”

Hussman is a third-generation newspaper publisher whose career began in 1970 as a reporter for Forbes magazine. He has lent his leadership talent to 22 arts, civic, educational and professional organizations, and served as chairman or president of seven of these organizations – including SNPA.

He was recognized by the Rotary Club as businessman of the year, received the Hero Award from the Nature Conservancy, and was saluted for his individual contribution to the Humanities.

Hussman’s father, Walter Hussman, was publisher of the Camden (Ark.) News from 1949 to 1981. His grandfather, Clyde Palmer, was publisher of the Texarkana (Texas) Gazette from 1909 to 1957.