Stephens Media sports columnist Harry King speaks during his induction to the Arkansas Sportswriters Hall of Fame. (John C. Jones photo)
Arkansas News Bureau
CONWAY — Harry King, the marquee sports columnist for Stephens Media newspapers in Arkansas, is the third sportswriter to be inducted into the Arkansas Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame.
In ceremonies Saturday evening at the University of Central Arkansas Student Center Ballroom, King joined his longtime friend, the late Jim Elder, and legendary University of Arkansas track coach John McDonnell in the third class to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Elder, the longtime radio show host and voice of the Arkansas Travelers, was inducted in the sportscasters category and McDonnell was given the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“It may sound trite, but I’m truly honored,” King told the crowd.
Jim Bailey, longtime sportswriter at the Arkansas Gazette and the Democrat-Gazette, was the presenter for both King and Elder, regaling those present with stories about the early days in both honorees’ careers.
Bailey, a recipient of both the Lifetime Achievement Award (2007) and an inductee as a sportswriter (2008), said he was present the day the late Orville Henry hired King as a part-time sportswriter at the Arkansas Gazette. King was a student at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock at the time.
Bailey said King was well-known for his participation in “touch” football games in the alley beside the Gazette Building and elsewhere and was known for sometimes injuring other players or himself. He once punctured a lung of columnist Ernie Dumas. Later, Henry told King he better not come in on crutches and he better not hear about anyone getting hurt and missing work as a result of the games, Bailey related.
“Harry hurt either an ankle or a knee shortly thereafter and he was limping quite a bit,” Bailey said. “But, if he was around Orville, he didn’t limp at all.”
King left the Gazette for The Associated Press in 1966, where he worked both as a news and sports reporter for the next 36 years. He left AP in 2002 to become a five-day-a-week sports columnist for Stephens papers. At one point, King was both news editor and sports editor at the AP’s Little Rock bureau.
His sports coverage spans the 1969 Arkansas-Texas football game, dubbed the Big Shootout, making him the dean of sportswriters covering the Razorbacks. King won the Churchill Downs Red Smith writing award for his coverage of Lil E Tee, who won the Kentucky Derby in 1992. He also has been named Sportswriter of the Year in Arkansas three times since 2002.
Accepting the award for Elder was his daughter, Susan, who heads the Jim Elder Good Sport Fund. Since his death in 1998, golf tournaments and other functions honoring her late father have raised thousands of dollars for scholarships and provided funding for many worthwhile programs, including the First Tee of Arkansas, RBI (Reviving Baseball in the Inner-city), the Miracle League and many others.
McDonnell won 42 national championships while coaching indoor and outdoor track and cross country teams at the University of Arkansas. He won national titles in all three sports five times in the same years and won 20 conference crowns both in the old Southwest Conference and the Southeastern Conference.
Previous inductees as sportscasters were the late Paul Eells (2007) and the late Bud Campbell (2008). Both did play-by-play of Arkansas football games on radio and both were former sports directors at KATV in Little Rock.
Previous sportswriter inductees were Henry, longtime sports editor at the Gazette, and Bailey.
