News
Noted Kentucky Journalist and UK Professor Al Cross to speak at SCC Oct. 29
Al Cross, the Director of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and Assistant Professor at the UK School of Journalism and Telecommunications will be the guest speaker at this year’s “John Sherman Cooper Lecture” at Somerset Community College on Monday, Oct. 29, at 6:30 p.m. in the Community Room in the Harold Rogers Student Commons on the SCC Somerset Campus. The lecture is free and the public is invited to attend.
According to Roger Tate, professor of history at SCC, the annual John Sherman Cooper Lecture focuses on issues of public affairs.
“John Sherman Cooper was a prominent public figure from South Central Kentucky,” Tate explained. “The lecture series is a source of pride for the College’s Social Science Division.”
Cross became director of the Institute in August 2004 after more than 26 years as a reporter at The Courier-Journal, the last 15½ as the Louisville newspaper’s chief political writer. His coverage ranged from presidential to local elections and included all facets of state government. As director of the Institute, which seeks to help rural media define the public agenda in their communities and report on regional issues, he is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky.
Cross was the elected president of the Society of Professional Journalists, the nation’s oldest, broadest and largest journalism organization, from October 2001 to September 2002. He was a charter member of his college SPJ chapter, president of the Louisville chapter, vice president of the Bluegrass Chapter, first chairman of the 1990 national convention in Louisville, chairman of an SPJ regional conference, and regional director for Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois on the national SPJ board in 1987-89. He was national chairman of Project Watchdog, an SPJ effort to explain the role of the news media in a democratic society. He is chairman of the SPJ Resolutions Committee, a member of the group’s Ethics Committee and International Journalism Committee, and a director of SPJ’s Sigma Delta Chi Foundation.
His awards include a share of the Pulitzer Prize won by The Courier-Journal staff in 1989 for coverage of the nation’s deadliest bus crash. He was co-recipient of an honorable mention for environmental reporting in the Southern Journalism Awards for a 1987 series on strip mining. He has received awards for reporting and column writing from the Louisville Chapter of SPJ. He lectured at The Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia in 2001 and a New York workshop on campaign finance sponsored by Brigham Young University in 2000, and helped teach a non-credit course on politics at Bellarmine University in 1992.
He is the longest-running panelist on KET's weekly "Comment on Kentucky,” has appeared on C-SPAN and "Washington Week In Review," and has been quoted in The Almanac of American Politics. He is the author of the Kentucky Encyclopedia article on Gov. Wallace Wilkinson (1987-91) and a major contributor to the second edition of the book Kentucky’s Governors. He wrote “Coming on Strong Down the Stretch” for Campaigns and Elections: Contemporary Case Studies, published in 1999 by Congressional Quarterly, and the foreword for the Kentucky 24-7, a 2004 book of photographs in a national, state-by-state project.
Cross is a graduate of Clinton County High School and Western Kentucky University, where he was chief reporter, editor and advertising manager of the award-winning College Heights Herald, and served on the Academic Council and student government. Even before high school, he was an announcer at WANY AM-FM and wrote for the Clinton County News. He was editor of The Reporter in nearby Monticello in 1975; assistant managing editor of The Logan Leader and The News-Democrat at Russellville in 1975-77; and editor of the Leitchfield Gazette and the Grayson County News-Gazette in 1977-78. He began work for The Courier-Journal at the Somerset bureau in May 1978, covering Richard Nixon's visit to Hyden that summer. He moved with the bureau to Bardstown in 1979, when it became the Central Kentucky Bureau and he covered the visit of President Carter. He began covering the Kentucky General Assembly in 1980 and wrote about many topics including energy, the environment, county finances, land-use planning and local and state politics. In the paper’s main office in Louisville in 1984-86, he covered education, transportation and politics. He joined The C-J's Frankfort Bureau in 1987 and became political writer in 1989.
Alvin Miller Cross was born April 24, 1954 in Knoxville, Tenn., and grew up in Albany, Ky., nestled between Lake Cumberland, Dale Hollow Lake, the western front of the Appalachians and the Tennessee border. He grew up watching Nashville television and reading The Courier-Journal. His father, Perry Cross (1904-93), was a politically active businessman who was state representative for Clinton and Cumberland counties in 1948-49. His mother, Winnie Miller Cross (1917- ), is an East Tennessee native and Berea College graduate. His brother David is a politically active attorney in Albany. Al Cross is married to Patti Hodges Cross, a Grayson County native and independent designer/editor of publications. A former Lion, Kiwanian and Rotarian, he enjoys reading, touring, boating, photography, his West Highland White Terriers and helping his wife restore their 100-year-old home in historic South Frankfort, near the state Capitol.
John Sherman Cooper was born in Somerset, Pulaski County, on Aug. 23, 1901. He graduated from public schools. He attended Centre College in Danville, but graduated from Yale College in 1923. Cooper attended Harvard Law School from 1923-25 and was admitted to the Kentucky Bar in 1928. He set up his law practice in Somerset.
Cooper was elected to the Kentucky Legislature in 1928. He served as judge of Pulaski County from 1930 to 1938. Cooper was a veteran. He served in World War II and rose to the rank of captain in the Army. He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1946 and served until 1949. He was elected to the Senate a second time from 1952 to 1955. On Nov. 6, 1956 Cooper was elected a third time to the Senate where he was reelected in 1960 and 1966. His Senate service ended on Jan. 3, 1973 when he declined to run for reelection.
Cooper was also a member of the board of trustees of the University of Kentucky from 1935-1946, served as a delegate to the United Nations, was appointed Ambassador to India, Nepal and the German Democratic Republic. He died on Feb. 21, 1991 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Somerset Community College is a comprehensive two-year institution of higher education. SCC has campuses in Somerset and London, centers in Clinton, McCreary, Russell and Casey Counties. The website is www.somerset.kctcs.edu. Call for admission and registration information toll free at 1-877-629-9722.
KCTCS serves the Commonwealth through 16 community and technical college districts that form a seamless system of 62 campuses open or under construction. KCTCS colleges change lives by providing accessible and affordable education and training through academic and technical associate degrees; diploma and certificate programs in occupational fields; pre-baccalaureate education; adult, continuing and developmental education; customized training for business and industry; and distance learning. For more information, visit www.kctcs.edu.
