Manship School of Mass Communication Inducts Four Alumni into Hall of Fame
Tickets to April 4 Event on Sale until March 31
 Brett Blackledge |
 Mike Dunne |
 John LaPlante, Jr. |
 John Spain |
Each year the Hall of Fame recognizes outstanding individuals connected to the Manship School of Mass Communication who have demonstrated excellence in the professional world, as well as loyalty and service to LSU and the Manship School.
Brett Blackledge, a 1986 graduate of LSU, is a reporter at the Birmingham News who won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. His 14-month investigation of Alabama’s two-year colleges exposed a system rife with corruption, cronyism, and nepotism. Blackledge, a former writer for The Reveille, also worked as a reporter for the Mobile Register, the Associated Press, The Journal Newspapers in Washington, D.C. and the Education Daily covering The White House, Congress, and the U.S. Department of Education.
Mike Dunne was an award-winning newspaper reporter, author and part-time instructor in Baton Rouge before his death in 2007. He is remembered for his work in environmental journalism, reporting on the dangers of Louisiana’s petrochemical corridor and the erosion along Louisiana’s coast. He received the first America’s Wetland Conservationist of the Year award and was a two-time winner of the Scripps-Howard Foundation’s Edward J. Meeman Award. Dunne was assistant city editor of the former Baton Rouge State-Times and moved to the general reporting and copy desk at the Morning Advocate in the early 1980s. He was also an investigative reporter for WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge, before returning to the Advocate in 1993. Dunne and photographer Bevil Knapp are the authors of the book, America’s Wetland: Louisiana’s Vanishing Coast.
John LaPlante, Jr., was a political columnist, news bureau chief and part-time instructor who spent more than three decades covering Louisiana government and politics. He received his bachelor’s degree from LSU in 1975, where he worked for the Daily Reveille. After a stint as capitol correspondent for the Alexandria Town Talk, he was hired by the Morning Advocate as a political reporter in 1980. In 1998 he was promoted to editor of the Capitol News Bureau. His “Political Horizons” column on Sundays was widely read. He earned a Master’s degree in Mass Communication in 2001, and was a part-time instructor at the Manship School until his death in 2007.
John Spain, a 1974 graduate of LSU, oversees the Greater Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s community projects. The Foundation is a non-profit community foundation that provides charitable gifts to organizations and is involved in civic projects in the areas of health care, urban renewal, education and the arts. Spain started his professional career in the field of broadcasting. He worked at WBRZ-TV, the ABC affiliate in Baton Rouge for 23 years. He served in various capacities from investigative reporter to news director to station manager. Under his leadership the station’s news operations received every major broadcast journalism award including two George F. Peabody awards, considered the Pulitzer Prize of broadcasting.
Even as LSU honors these four outstanding representatives of our University community, the next generation of Manship School students is hard at work here at LSU, ready to continue the legacy of leadership and service created by Blackledge, Dunne, LaPlante, Spain, and thousands of other Manship School of Mass Communication graduates who came before them. Support for the Manship School and its students is one of the cornerstones of the Forever LSU campaign, a coordinated effort to raise more than $750 million in support for LSU by the end of the year 2010.
Through the support of its alumni and friends, the Manship School shares common campaign goals with other colleges across campus, like recruiting and retaining a diverse student body of the highest quality, offering more student and faculty support through scholarships and professorships, and fueling the Louisiana economy by creating a knowledgeable, prepared workforce.
Among the top priorities for the Manship School of Mass Communication are:
- An endowed chair in Diversity Media and Public Affairs
- An endowed chair in Health and Media
- An endowed chair in Sports Media and Promotion
- Graduate Student Fellowships
Visit www.foreverlsu.org to find out how you can get involved with the campaign for LSU’s future!
If you would like to attend the Manship School of Mass Communication Hall of Fame Event, tickets are $50 per person and may be purchased by contacting Sara Courtney, the Development Director of the Manship School, at 225-578-2418 or by email at scourtney@lsu.edu.
Forever
LSU Campaign
3838 West Lakeshore Drive
Baton Rouge, LA 70808
campaign@foreverlsu.org
