Walter H. Harwell, Jr.
Newspaper executive
Port Orange, Fla.
Widely recognized in the industry as a smart, hands-on business manager who maintained core journalistic values as well as a good bottom line, Gus Harwell, BJ ’51, led Knight-Ridder’s small and medium-sized newspapers through the technological and content revolutions of the 1970s and 1980s. A naval officer, he served the newspaper industry as a reporter, photographer, editor, managing editor, advertising manager, general manager and publisher before retiring in 1995 as senior vice president for operations at Knight-Ridder. In retirement he has taught classes in management and editing; served on the J School’s Missourian Publishing Association Board since 1993 and is the current president. He is co-chair of the Columbia Missourian’s endowment campaign to ensure the permanent financial viability of the paper as a teaching and research laboratory. In Florida he has served as campaign chairman for the United Way, president of the Florida Press Association, vice president of Family Renew Community, which serves homeless families, and building committee chairman for Covenant United Methodist Church. A member of the Mizzou Alumni Association, Walter Williams Society, Legacy Society and a very distinguished fellow of the Jefferson Club, Harwell and his wife, Mary Ann, have a daughter, Suzanne, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.