Three Journalism Alumni to Be Honored

Photos Submitted

From left, Sue Walk Burnett, Charles Portis and Ron Robinson

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas alumni Susan Walk Burnett, Charles Portis and Ron Robinson will be inducted into the Lemke Alumni Society's Hall of Honor at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28, at the Janelle Y. Hembree Alumni House.

The Lemke Alumni Society Hall of Honor recognizes graduates of the Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism at the University of Arkansas who have pursued distinguished careers in journalism, brought honor and integrity to their respective communities and contributed to the growth of the department. The Lemke Alumni Society is the society within the Arkansas Alumni Association for graduates of the journalism department.

Susan Walk Burnett

Susan Walk Burnett earned a Bachelor of Arts in journalism in 1968. As a student, she was secretary of Chi Omega Sorority and co-editor of the Razorback yearbook in 1968. Burnett has supported the journalism department by creating scholarships for journalism students and funding the Sue Walk Burnett Reading Room, located in Kimpel 115, which was named after her in 1999. Burnett and her husband, Rusty Burnett, have pledged $1 million for an expansion of Kimpel Hall for the department of journalism. This addition will be named the Susan Walk Burnett Center for Journalism and Student Media in honor of the donors, subject to the Board of Trustees' approval.

Charles Portis

Charles Portis earned a Bachelor of Arts in journalism in 1958. As a student, Portis wrote for both for The Arkansas Traveler and The Northwest Arkansas Times.

Portis has also written for the Arkansas Gazette and the New York Herald Tribune. At the Herald Tribune, he covered many civil rights-related stories in the South. Portis later spent a year in London as the Herald Tribune's bureau chief and reporter. In 1964, he left journalism and returned to Arkansas to become a full-time fiction writer. Portis is most famously known for his novel True Grit (1968). True Grit and his first novel Norwood (1966) would be later be adapted into a film. John Wayne won his only Academy Award for his portrayal in True Grit in 1970. In 2010, Portis was honored with the Oxford American's first Lifetime Achievement in Southern Literature Award. In 2014, the Porter Prize presented its 30th Anniversary Lifetime Achievement Award to Portis.

Ron Robinson

Ron Robinson earned a Bachelor of Arts in journalism in 1965 and later studied public relations at the Boston University Graduate School of Public Communications. As a student, he served as editor for The Arkansas Traveler in 1964-65.

Robinson is a past chair and chief executive officer of Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods, a full-service advertising, marketing, and public relations firm, headquartered in Little Rock and an office in Springdale. In the spring of 2005, he was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus of the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Robinson has a departmental scholarship in his name.

This will be the ninth Hall of Honor event; the first event took place in 2000. Past honorees have included Jim Faulkner, the late E. Lynn Harris and Skip Rutherford.

Tickets are $60 for members and $65 for nonmembers. Register online by Oct. 25.

For additional information, please contact Ray Minor, Lemke Alumni Society president, at rayminor@uark.edu. For sponsorship information, please contact Angela Mosley Monts at ammonts@uark.edu.