Floyd professor wins
national book award
By Sam Chapman
[email protected]
Editor
Co-authoring the book �Someone Had To Be Hated: Julian Larose Harris-A Biography� with Georgia State University professor of communication Dr. Greg Lisby, Dr. William Mugleston, chair of the social and cultural studies division, has received the American Journalism Historians Association Award.
Mugleston and Lisby flew to Billings, Montana, in October to the American Journalism Historians Association 2003 annual convention to be presented the award for the best work written on journalism history or mass media history.
During the 1970s, while a graduate student at the University of Georgia, Mugleston came across some of Harris' articles in the Emory University Library, which motivated him to do his doctoral dissertation on the journalist. What sparked Mugleston's interest about Harris was that he was �gutsy, courageous, and had journalistic integrity.�
Spending a great deal of time at the Emory Library, Mugleston studied up to a decade of Harris' work. Articles that Mugleston found that shaped his personal interest in Harris included stories fighting against Prohibition, the Ku Klux Klan and corrupt state government in Georgia.
Harris kept everything he wrote, including his laundry lists, says Mugleston. Mugleston added, �It took a lot of patience and work to research a 10 year history of Harris' articles.�
Mugleston and Lisby began collaborating on the book in the mid to late nineties, after meeting through a mutual acquaintance. They would share their research by visiting one another and emailing the information to each other whenever possible.
Mugleston said it was a surprising but satisfying feeling to hear that he and Lisby had won the AJHA award.
Mugleston has been chair of the social and cultural studies division since 1994.
This semester Mugleston is teaching two college by cassette courses, American History I and II. He is also teaching American History I on the Cartersville campus.
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