Guy Easterly

 

 

Induction Year:¬Ý1971

Lived:¬Ý1901-1963

 

Papers:

The Middlesboro (Ky.) Daily News; The Cumberland Courier, Pineville, Ky.

The LaFollette Press; The Advance-Sentinel, Jellico

 

Guy Easterly's three decades as editor and publisher of Tennessee weekly newspapers were distinguished by his service and leadership in state, regional, and national associations. He spoke, wrote, and traveled extensively in serving the profession.

 

Born in Greene County March 5,1901, Easterly graduated from Lincoln Memorial University in 1925, taught school for a year, became advertising manager of the Daily News in Middlesboro, Kentucky, and then editor and publisher of the Cumberland Courier in Pineville. In 1932 he returned to Tennessee and became editor and publisher of the LaFollette Press and, 10 years later, of the Advance-Sentinel in Jellico. He held both positions until his death November 27,1963.

 

From 1944 to 1945 he served as president of the Tennessee Press Association and from 1951 to 1963 as president of the Tennessee Press Service. As a member of the National Editorial Association, he initiated and participated in that group's rededication-to-freedom resolution and resultant ceremony at Plymouth Rock in 1949-50.

 

He spoke before a Tennessee General Assembly public hearing on a TPA "right to know" bill in 1957, and he testified at Washington before House subcommittees concerning suppression of government news.

 

Easterly became president in 1961 of NEA (now National Newspaper Association) and was named to its board in 1962. He was chairman of its Freedom of Information Committee and was active in establishment of the Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri. He was a director of the center.

 

An authority on Civil War history, he was writing a biography of a Union general at the time of his death.