Award-winning religion writer David Waters will give the Patterson Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 24, in Nucor Auditorium at Lyon College. The program is free and open to the public.
David Waters is an editor and columnist for The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. He rejoined the newspaper in 2010 after serving as religion editor for The Washington Post from 2007-2010. Waters first joined The Commercial Appeal in 1980 and has worked as a reporter, editor and columnist, primarily focused on religion. His current title is senior content manager, and he is also editor of Faith in Memphis, his weekly column and blog.
In his lecture, Waters said he will offer a “correspondent’s report from the frontlines of the culture war, and talk about the battles along the church-state border (including some in Arkansas).”
His awards include a 2010 Wilbur Award for best religion blog, a 2004 Wilbur Award for best religion column, and a 1997 Distinguished Writing Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors for his religion writing. In 2000, he was inducted into the Scripps Howard Editorial Hall of Fame for his work as a reporter, editor and columnist.
An Ohio native, Waters is a graduate of the University of Memphis, where he majored in journalism and political science. He grew up in an interfaith household: His father was a Baptist from the South, his mother a mainline Protestant from the North.
Hugh Baskin Patterson, Jr., former chairman of The Arkansas Gazette, established the Hugh B. Patterson, Sr., Lecture Series in August 1977 in memory of his father. The lecture series brings a nationally recognized journalist to the campus each year. Mr. Patterson, Jr., was publisher of The Arkansas Gazette during the 1957 Little Rock school desegregation crisis. The newspaper won two Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage of the crisis. Mr. Patterson died in May 2006 at age 91.
