4/29/99
ANNISTON STAR EXECUTIVE TO SPEAK AT AUBURN AS DAVIS LECTURER
AUBURN -- H. Brandt Ayers, editor and publisher of The Anniston Star, will give the 1999 Neil and Henrietta Davis Lecture at Auburn University on Friday, May 7.
Ayers, head of Alabama's largest home-owned newspaper, will speak at 2 p.m. in the AU Hotel and Conference Center Auditorium. The title of his lecture will be "Old Rules, News Rules and the Everlasting Rules."
The lecture series is sponsored by AU's Department of Journalism, but is privately funded.
During Ayers tenure at The Star, the newspaper has received numerous honors, including being named twice by Time magazine as "one of the best small newspapers in the United States."
In 1998, Ayers was featured as the cover story in American Journalism Review magazine. In addition to his interest in The Star, Ayers is also co-owner of The Daily Home in Talladega, the Jacksonville News, The Cleburne News and The Piedmont Journal-Independent.
Ayers also writes a syndicated column, titled "Out Here," which is carried by more than 30 newspapers.
During 1967-78, Ayers was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and in 1990, he was a Gannet Fellow at Columbia University. A graduate of the University of Alabama, Ayers was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1996.
The Davis Lecture Series was established in 1996 by AU's Department of Journalism to honor the two longtime Lee County newspaper executives -- Neil and Henrietta Davis.
Neil Davis, who was publisher and editor of the Lee County Bulletin for 40 years, is a 1935 Auburn graduate and a Nieman Fellow. He founded the newspaper in 1937.
Davis' wife, the late Henrietta Worsley Davis, also a 1935 graduate, was the newspaper's associate editor and chief reporter.
After retiring as publisher, Neil Davis was an adjunct professor in AU's Department of Journalism.
CONTACT: Jerry Brown, professor and head of AU's Department of Journalism, 334/844-4607.