Beech Tree News Network

Deborah Taylor Givens is the former editor-publisher of The Butler County Banner-Green River Republican

---

A longtime journalist and journalism professor from Butler County has been inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.  Deborah Taylor Givens was one of seven journalists honored at the April 9 induction ceremony and Joe Creason Lecture.  The ceremony was held at the University of Kentucky Gatton Student Center.

Givens is the former editor-publisher of The Butler County Banner-Green River Republican and is a former journalism professor and department chair at Eastern Kentucky University.

An Indiana native and Ball State graduate she started her career in 1974 in Butler County. She earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Western Kentucky University and a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Kentucky, writing her disseration on southeastern Kentucky community newspapers. She served as regional director of the Society of Professional Journalists and president of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors.

Veteran Kentucky journalist Al Cross gave the 2024 Joe Creason Lecture prior to the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.  

In brief comments regarding the inductees, Cross said of Givens:  "There’s Debbie Givens, my Al Smith Communications colleague, who showed before I did that a community newspaper editor can climb the journalism academic ladder." 

Other 2024 Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame inductees are:  

--Peter Baniak, vice president of local news for small and medium markets for McClatchy Co. and former editor and general manager of the Lexington Herald-Leader;

--Betty Winston Baye, a former editorial writer, columnist and reporter at the Courier Journal, the author of three books and a national leader among Black American journalists;

--Rev. Paul Prather, a former business reporter and an award-winning religion reporter and religion columnist at the Lexington Herald-Leader, who pastors Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling;

--Elizabeth “Scoobie” Ryan, a retired journalism professor at the University of Kentucky who headed the journalism sequence in the UK School of Journalism and Media and worked as a radio broadcaster;

--Sheldon Shafer, retired reporter who wrote about 25,000 stories in 44 years at the Courier Journal and was known for his speed and vast list of sources;

--the late Kyle Vance, a reporter with the Courier Journal who shared in a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of strip mining in Kentucky and was a top investigative reporter in the state for many years.

The Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, created by the University of Kentucky Journalism Alumni Association in 1981, honors journalists who are Kentucky natives or have spent a significant portion of their careers working for Kentucky news-media organizations. More than 200 individuals, both with and without formal ties to UK, have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.