No better way to learn how to write like a Pulitzer Prize winner than to have one for a journalism professor.
Long before he himself was recognized with journalism’s top honor as a member of a Pulitzer-winning task force at the Philadelphia Inquirer, a young Bob Frump found himself in that very position as an Illinois undergrad.
The teacher: “Gene Graham, (1962) Pulitzer Prize winner and professor of journalism,” says Frump (BS '69, journalism), the pride of Paxton.
“Gene was from the Nashville Tennessean and was an inspiration, someone who brought to me, a neophyte, the concept of excelling.
“The guy had won a Pulitzer!”
Frump has gone on to similar media fame — winning the George Polk Award for National Reporting and the Gerald Loeb Award for National Business Reporting. A renowned maritime writer and author, he also served as managing editor of Knight-Ridder’s Journal of Commerce and now sits on the board of directors of The Texas Observer.
Not bad for a one-time city hall reporter for The News-Gazette, where in 1968-69 Frump encountered another member of his most influential list.
“The other fella was a reporter for the Gazette, Ed Borman, who brought me on as a rookie college kid and mentored me,” Frump says. “We disagreed on almost everything — except what was a great story.”
