Dr. Hoar’s Students Working to Preserve His Legacy

Greg Brock, senior editor for standards at The New York Times and 2012 Silver Em recipient from the University of Mississippi, shares a laugh with Dr. Jere Hoar, the professor Brock described as the most influential in his career. Hoar’s students have initiated an in-gathering of stories about Dr. Hoar’s classes as well as an effort to increase the existing scholarship fund for journalism honors students to at least $300,000. / Photo Courtesy of Meek School of Journalism and New Media

Honors students in one of the leading academic programs at the University of Mississippi no longer have the opportunity to enroll in a class led by the famed and now retired Dr. Jere Hoar — but they may get the opportunity to be at Ole Miss due to the Journalism professor’s legacy.

Inspired by his teaching, Dr. Hoar’s students created a scholarship in his honor a few years ago. This fall, the students are launching an initiative that will both record history and make history.

Prospective donors are being invited to log onto a dedicated link on the University of Mississippi Foundation website to share their memories of Dr. Hoar so that the stories are not lost to time. Also, if the goal of increasing the existing endowment by $100,000 is met, an anonymous donor has pledged another $100,000 to make the fund among the largest available to students in what is now the Meek School of Journalism and New Media.

Journalism at Ole Miss began in the years immediately after World War II. Since then, dozens of the students have become leading national and international practitioners in newspapers and broadcasting.

One of them is Curtis Wilkie, now senior fellow at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics (named in honor of a Pulitzer winner and fellow alumnus, Charles Overby). Wilkie’s career culminated with many years covering presidential politics and the Middle East for The Boston Globe, but it began in the presence of Dr. Jere Hoar.

“I was a callow high school senior considering journalism at Ole Miss, and he was a young professor willing to spend time advising me,” Wilkie said. And he added a confession about arriving late for a class during his senior year: “As I handed over my papers, Dr. Hoar had the look of a man confronted with an unpleasant odor.” Wilkie failed the class, the same class he now teaches in the Meek School — and he tells students about it on their first day every semester. “The story demonstrates Jere Hoar’s strong commitment to the highest standards” and “it taught me a valuable lesson about meeting deadlines as a newspaper reporter.”

Greg Brock, now senior editor for standards at The New York Times, came to the University of Mississippi a generation after Wilkie. A leader in the effort to honor Hoar and preserve his legacy, Brock says his initial take on Dr. Hoar was that he was “demanding, overbearing and totally unreasonable.” Brock’s viewpoint has moderated. “I understand why he pushed us so hard to do our best. He is the professor I remember most fondly and appreciate the most.”

Students who receive the Jere Hoar Scholarship in Journalism will be selected from journalism majors who are also members of the Sally McConnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi. It will be a perpetual endowment, with scholarships limited to the fund’s annual earnings.

Dr. Hoar is a native of Tennessee who continues to live and work on his farm in Oxford. Before and after graduating from Auburn, he worked in weekly and daily journalism and for trade publications.

He is a veteran, having served in the Air Force during the Korean Conflict. Later, Dr. Hoar earned a master’s at Ole Miss and a doctorate from the University of Iowa. He also completed a preceptor program, passed the legal examination and became a licensed Mississippi attorney.

Dr. Hoar also continued to write short stories and novels, but says teaching was his passion. Too, he is as happy about students who “chose to do good work in small places” as he is those who have had more notable careers.

The “tell your story” portal can be found at www.umfoundation.com/jerehoar, where donations can also be made.

Mailed donations should be sent to The University of Mississippi Foundation, Jere Hoar Scholarship Endowment, P.O. Box 249, University, MS 38677-0249.

The Meek School of Journalism and New Media is the newest academic unit at Ole Miss. It offers bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism and in integrated marketing communications. The school website is www.meek.olemiss.edu.