Communication Hall of Fame

Jennings Bryant is the former director of the University of Alabama’s Institute for Communication Research, an organization he founded that has evolved to become the Institute for Communication and Information Research. His direction, leadership and commitment to research left a lasting impact upon the fields of communication, media effects, interpersonal communication and beyond and he helped develop children’s TV shows like Sesame Street. SHOW ME NOW

William O. “Bill” Bolen spent more than 50 years as an anchor for WBRC Fox 6 in Birmingham. Throughout his career, Bolen was witness to many major events, reporting from the front line of the Selma March in 1965 and interviewing John Glenn before his final flight into space in 1998, just to name two. He also represented the station in volunteer capacities. SHOW ME NOW

Gilbert E. “Gibby” Johnston enjoyed a prominent career in law, becoming one of the best-known First Amendment lawyers in Alabama. In 1974 Johnston joined the Birmingham law firm Johnston, Barton, Proctor, Swedlaw & Naff, where he worked with colleagues to establish numerous favorable precedents in the law pertaining to libel and privacy defense, access to public meetings and records and the reporter’s privilege. SHOW ME NOW

H. Shelton Prince Jr. began his newspaper career at the Cedartown (Ga.) Standard in 1956. He spent time in Galveston and Laredo, Texas, in Jasper and Selma and was publisher of the Brownwood (Texas) Bulletin at the time of his death in 1997. Prince was a senior vice president, group manager and president of the Southwest Management Group of Tuscaloosa-based Boone Newspapers Inc. SHOW ME NOW