Pell City’s Carol Pappas, former editor and publisher of The Daily Home and St. Clair Times, will be one of five veteran journalists who have been chosen to receive prestigious 2011 Auburn Journalism Honors on April 22.

“I am especially honored to receive this award because local news and community journalism meant so much to me as a reporter, an editor and a publisher,” said Pappas, who now runs Partners by Design, a multimedia marketing firm based in Pell City. “It was the centerpiece of everything we did.

“I have been asked before about what award or recognition meant the most to me during my career, and I always answer with ‘Best Locally Generated News’ that we won when I was city editor,” she said. “To me, it meant that we were really serving the readers, giving them the news that was important to them.

“To be honored by my university for things I did during my journalism career makes me proud, and I thank the Auburn Journalism Advisory Council for its support of journalism and this event to recognize journalists with Alabama ties.”

The other four honorees are Jim Stewart, former CBS News reporter; Jon Johnson, sports editor of The Dothan Eagle; Dewey English, managing editor of the Press-Register of Mobile; and the late Ronald B. Casey, former editorial page editor of The Birmingham News.

The Auburn University Journalism Advisory Council established these awards in 2005 “to recognize and celebrate the best and most enduring professionals in our field,” in this state and outside of it with Alabama roots.  Only the AU Journalism Alumnus award must have AU connections.  And it is not restricted to those in the practice of journalism, “realizing numerous AU journalism alums have succeeded admirably in a variety of fields.”  

Nomination letters for the awards are accepted annually, September – October.  Current and former professionals are eligible nominees.  Anyone interested in more information on these awards are encouraged to contact Dr. Jennifer Wood Adams, AU Journalism Program Director (adamsj1@auburn.edu) or Roy Bain, chairman of the honors committee (rbain1217@att.net).

“From the outset of these awards, we have encouraged broad participation,” said Bain.  “We’ve been pleased to honor some of this state’s best and brightest, and the 2011 class fits well among those,” he added.