The Jack Webster Foundation today announced that Mel Rothenburger, Editor of the Kamloops Daily News, will receive the 2011 Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th Annual Jack Webster Awards Dinner.
The Jack Webster Foundation, founded in memory of the late iconic BC reporter, names its Lifetime Achievement Award after Bruce Hutchison, the legendary Vancouver Sun journalist who started out at the Victoria Times in 1917 and went on to become the confidant of prime ministers.
Mel Rothenburger has served his community for more than 40 years at the Kamloops Daily News, variously and often concurrently as owner, editor, reporter, columnist, webmaster and blogger.
“A mid-career time-out for civic politics can only have deepened his community understanding, as has his current work on eight community boards, duties that have caused him to consider, publicly at times, the line between community service and journalism,” Scott Macrae of the Vancouver Sun stated.
Mel Rothenburger’s arrival as editor of the Kamloops Daily News’ predecessor in 1970 began an incredibly deep relationship with the Interior city that has witnessed his huge measure of journalistic and civic contributions.
His career has run the gamuts from hot metal to pixels, weekly to daily, newsprint to blog. While overseeing a newsroom staff of 18 editors, writers and photographers, Rothenburger has somehow managed to also find time to be the KDN’s webmaster, write many of its editorials, and maintain a thoughtful blog that invites readers into the inner workings of today’s journalism.
A lifelong passion for civic affairs – he’d been a chair of the Kamloops school board- led to his successful bid for the mayor’s chair from 1999-2005. Now he’s back in the Editor’s chair.
A mentor to countless young reporters throughout his career, Rothenburger has taught journalism at Cariboo College and was later instrumental in helping to establish the journalism program at Thomson Rivers University.
Rothenburger has also received the Queen’s Jubilee Medal, the Heritage Society of B.C. Outstanding Achievement Award, the Rotary International Paul Harris Fellowship and the BC Community Newspaper Association’s Eric Dunning Integrity Award.
“Being honoured in the name of fellow journalists the calibre of Webster and Hutchison is both deeply satisfying and humbling,” Rothenburger said.
The Jack Webster Foundation, named after the late broadcaster who was Western Canada’s best known and most influential reporter, was established in 1986 to recognize excellence in British Columbia journalism.
Previous winners of the Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award, the foundation’s most prestigious recognition, include: Jim Taylor, Bill Good, Steve Wyatt, Jim Harrison, Vaughn Palmer, Vicki Gabereau, Tony Parsons, Rafe Mair, Allan Fotheringham, Patrick Nagle, Roy Peterson, Cameron Bell, Keith Bradbury, Dan McLeod, Denny Boyd, George Garrett, Moira Farrow, Jim Hume, Warren Barker, Len Norris, and Hutchison himself.
The 25th Annual Jack Webster Awards Dinner will be held October 24 at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver
Above article written by the Jack Webser Foundation
photo courtesy of kamloopsnews.ca
Rothenburger graduated in 1962 from the local high school. His father owned a car repair shop on Main Street (where Shaw Medical building is located today).