Four inducted into Maine Press Hall of Fame

PORTLAND – Four journalists were inducted into the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame on Friday night for outstanding contributions to newspapers within or outside Maine.

Inducted were Douglas E. Kneeland of Lincoln, who worked for a total of 34 years at The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune; Jerry Durnbaugh, who, with his wife, published The Weekly Packet in Blue Hill for 21 years; Daniel S. Dexter, Lewiston Sun Journal city editor from 1923-39; and Davis S. Rawson Jr., a longtime State House reporter and political commentator.

The keynote speaker for the ceremony was Gene Roberts, the former Philadelphia Inquirer editor who led the newspaper to 17 Pulitzer Prizes during his 18-year tenure, starting in 1972. Roberts is now a journalism professor at the University of Maryland.

After retiring to his hometown of Lincoln in 1993, Kneeland wrote editorials and a column for the weekly Lincoln News for six years. He also taught journalism classes at his alma mater, the University of Maine.

Durnbaugh, who began his journalism career in Indiana as a sports reporter and photographer, launched the Blue Hill weekly in 1960. He and his wife sold the paper in 1981, but he has continued to write his weekly column.

Dexter was with the Lewiston paper for 43 years, including 16 years as editorial writer. He died in 1956.

Rawson, a native of Caribou, began his journalism career at the Bangor Daily News and went on to become an editorial writer for the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram and managing editor of the Waterville Morning Sentinel. He died in 1998.