Tue Feb 09 2010
Hugh Morris, a longtime Frankfort bureau chief for The Courier-Journal who was inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 1997, died Monday in Frankfort. He was 94.
Memorial services for him are pending at Rogers Funeral Home.
Morris was part of the team of reporters that won the Pulitzer Prize for the Courier Journal for coverage of strip mine abuses and helping bring about stricter controls.
“During nearly a quarter century of the Courier-Journal’s heyday as a statewide newspaper, Morris and his colleagues were Kentuckians main source for knowing how their state was operating,” said Dick Wilson, a retired Courier-Journal reporter in Frankfort who covered higher education.
“His colleagues were Allan Trout, Anne Pardue and later Kyle Vance and Livingston Taylor.
“Hugh was the model for many young Kentucky journalists including myself who aspired to outstanding state government and political coverage. You couldn’t keep up with Frankfort without reading Morris in the Courier-Journal.”
Wilson said he succeeded Morris at the Frankfort bureau.
“He resigned in 1969 and the Courier-Journal sent me here shortly thereafter,” Wilson said.
State Sen. Julian Carroll, a former governor, said Morris “was one of the best reporters I ever knew. Hugh was a (Lexington Herald-Leader) Jack Brammer type reporter. He never hurt anyone that I know of.
“He was always very thorough and accurate in his reporting and was generally well liked by everyone that I can remember.”
A native of Bowling Green, he was a graduate of Louisville Male High School. He attended Purdue University studying mechanical and electrical engineering, but became interested in journalism and served as managing editor of the student newspaper.
He started his journalism career as managing editor of two small newspapers in Attica, Ind.
He went to work for the Courier-Journal in 1937, serving as a reporter, Indiana editor, assistant editor, assistant state editor and make-up editor before World War II.
Then he served in the U.S. Navy as an air intelligence officer.
After the war he came to Frankfort and was a member of the capital bureau of the Courier-Journal for 23 years, of which 17 were as bureau chief.
He covered 22 regular and special sessions of the legislature, becoming highly knowledgeable on the workings of the General Assembly, state finances and Kentucky politics.
After leaving the Courier-Journal in 1969 he worked 10 years for the state Legislative Research Commission.
He won a Nieman Fellowship in 1950 at Harvard University.
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