UCA to honor Pulitzer-nominated photographer

UCA will posthumously honor Ira Wilmer (Will) Counts Jr. during a reception on Friday, Sept. 12, at 10 a.m. in the Board of Trustees Conference Room in Wingo Hall.

Counts will be awarded the 2008 Distinguished Alumnus Award and an Honorary Doctorate in Communication. Counts’ wife, Vivian, will accept the awards on his behalf.

The UCA Foundation will also announce a new scholarship in Counts’ honor that was established by Conway residents and longtime friends, Milton and Claudia Davis.

Counts was a Pulitzer Prize-nominated photographer best known in Arkansas for his photographs during the 1957 desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock.Counts earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Arkansas State Teacher’s College (now UCA) in 1952. While attending ASTC, he worked as the school