Dr. Donna Lampkin Stephens, associate professor of Journalism at the University of Central Arkansas, will be part of the 10th class inducted into the Arkansas Sportscasters/Sportswriters Hall of Fame on Saturday, July 9.
Stephens, a sportswriter in Arkansas since 1984, will join Rex Nelson, the play-by-play voice of the Ouachita Baptist University Tigers for the last 40 years, who will be inducted as the sportscaster.
“I am humbled and honored to join a group that includes many of the icons of Arkansas sports writing,” Stephens said. “I grew up reading Orville Henry, Jim Bailey, Wadie Moore and Joe Mosby in the Arkansas Gazette and Harry King with the Associated Press. To be listed along with them is one of the highest honors of my life.”
Stephens was a sportswriter for the Gazette from 1984 until the newspaper died on Oct. 18, 1991. Since then, she has been a freelance writer for numerous Arkansas publications. She produced the documentary films “The Old Gray Lady: Arkansas’s First Newspaper” (2006), which tells the history of the Arkansas Gazette; and “The Crisis Mr. Faubus Made: The Role of the Arkansas Gazette in the Central High Crisis” (2010).
Her dissertation from the University of Southern Mississippi, “’If It Ain’t Broke, Break It’: How Corporate Journalism Killed the Arkansas Gazette” won an honorable mention in the American Journalism Historians Association’s 2013 Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize contest and was published by the University of Arkansas Press in 2015.
The hall of fame induction banquet at the Centennial Special Events Center in Conway will begin with a meet and greet at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner at 6 p.m. and induction ceremonies at 6:45 p.m.
Mark Martin, the NASCAR champion from Batesville, will be the keynote speaker. Also to be recognized are the late Bill Stephens, former athletic director at UCA, with the Service Award; Ray Rodgers, promoter of amateur boxing in Arkansas and the director of the National Golden Gloves Championships and National Silver Glove Championships, with the Lifetime Achievement Award; and Don Campbell, long-time successful football coach of the Wynne Yellowjackets, as the Arkansas Sports Club Member of the Year.
Tickets are $60 and may be purchased from any board member of the ASCSW Hall of Fame or by calling 501.733.4011 or 501.327.0252.
The UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication includes the Departments of Art, Communication, Mass Communication and Theatre, Music and Writing. The college’s primary mission is the preparation of the next generation of artists, educators and communicators. For more information about CFAC, visit www.uca.edu/cfac or call (501) 450-3293.
