An award is presented by The West Tennessee Historical Society to the contributor of the article chosen by the Executive Committee as being the best of those printed in each number of The West Tennessee Historical Society Papers. The award for the 2013 WTHS Papers goes to Dr. Dale E. Zacher, Associate Professor School of Mass Communication University of Arkansas at Little Rock for his article “Our Forest Home:” Editor Edward Meeman’s Crusade for Shelby Forest, 1933-3.

Dr. Zacher received his B.A., Broadcast Journalism with minors in economics and political science from the University of North Dakota and a M.S., Journalism and Ph.D. Mass Communication from Ohio University. For five years he was a radio and TV news reporter/assignment editor and spent 4 years working in government and political public relations.

Dale Zacher’s research interests include World War I journalism, political reporting and the history of the E.W. Scripps newspaper chain. His book titled The Scripps Newspapers Go To War, 1914-1918, was published in 2008 (University of Illinois Press). Zacher’s Ph.D. dissertation won the Margaret Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation prize from the American Journalism Historians Association in 2000. He is a member of the editorial board of the academic journal Journalism History.