T&D’s Livingston inducted into press hall of fame

Roughly 75 newspaper journalists – from the 1700s to the present – have been chosen by their peers for recognition. Nominees must have been deceased for four or more years.

On Friday, Dean B. Livingston, The Times and Democrat’s publisher from 1962-99 who died in 2014, was inducted in the hall of fame during a ceremony held as part of the S.C. Press Association’s annual meeting.

Livingston was joined as an inductee by John Henry McCray, a newspaper publisher and editor in Charleston and Sumter who died in 1987. He is the first Black to be inducted into the hall of fame.

Also inducted was iconic Post and Courier sports and metro columnist Ken Burger, an Allendale native who died in 2015.

“Newspapering,” as he called it, was in Livingston’s blood. He began as a bicycle carrier at age 8 for The T&D.

At age 12, he was a production employee and columnist for The Orangeburg Observer. Over consecutive summer college breaks, he served as The T&D’s interim sports editor and managing editor. Upon graduation from USC in 1956, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, serving a three-year tour of duty as a MAPS navigator, logging more than 2,000 flying hours. He then returned to The T&D as managing editor and, in 1962, he was named publisher.

He was on the front line of coverage at the scene of the 1968 “Orangeburg Massacre” in which three students were killed near South Carolina State University during a continuing protest over desegregating a Russell Street bowling alley.

He led the newspaper through its most trying times in 1972 when the Broughton Street building complete with major improvements was lost to fire.

A year later, The T&D continued to publish during the snowstorm of 1973 that was termed the worst-ever natural disaster to hit locally.

Continuing to produce daily editions no matter what was the hallmark of Livingston’s leadership. He took great pride in The Times and Democrat never failing to publish during his three decades as publisher.

As an industry pioneer, in 1965 he was among the first publishers nationwide to convert to offset printing technology and in the 1990s was on the cutting edge of computer pagination of newspaper pages.

Livingston served his community and profession as president of the S.C. Press Association and its foundation; as an active member of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, and the S.C. Newspaper Publishers Association. He was also an adjunct professor at both the USC School of Journalism and Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College.

He enjoyed 25 years of service to Rotary International, serving a term as president, as well as serving as president of the Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce. He also served both the Salvation Army and the Boy Scouts of America. In 1989, Livingston was the recipient of South Carolina State College’s Distinguished Achievement Award for “exemplary achievement in business and outstanding community leadership and service.”

After retirement, Livingston did not step away from The T&D, writing columns and serving as editor for the newspaper’s millennial special section. He authored “Yesteryears: A newsman’s look back at events and people who have influenced the histories of Orangeburg and Calhoun counties.”

About the other inductees

John Henry McCray (1910-1987)

Born in Florida in 1910, John Henry McCray moved with his family to the all-Black community of Lincolnville, SC, at age 6. He was valedictorian of the class of 1931 at Avery Institute in Charleston. In 1935, McCray earned a chemistry degree from Talladega College in Alabama.

He first served as city editor of the Charleston Messenger from 1935 to 1938. In 1939, he started his own newspaper, the Charleston Lighthouse, which was later named the Carolina Lighthouse to reflect McCray’s desire to publish a newspaper with statewide influence. Two years later McCray took over the Sumter Informer. Setting up operations in Columbia, he published the first edition of the Lighthouse and Informer on December 7, 1941. Unlike most Black newspapers of its day, it gave its readers political commentary, society news, entertainment and sports. But most of all, it carried news about Black people from South Carolina, the United States and the world. Before ceasing publication in 1954, the Lighthouse and Informer had become the state’s largest and most politically charged Black weekly.

After the paper closed, McCray edited regional editions of some of America’s most prominent Black newspapers, including the Baltimore Afro-American (1954–1960), the Pittsburgh Courier (1960– 1962), the Chicago Defender (1962–1963) and the Atlanta Daily World (1964).

Ken Burger (1949-2015)

Ken Burger was born Oct. 22, 1949 in Allendale. He went to Anderson College and then to the University of Georgia where he graduated in 1973.

He began his newspaper career as a sports writer at The Columbia Record in 1973.

After nearly a decade at The Record and The State, Burger went to The Post and Courier as a metro reporter in 1984 and quickly moved up to a two-year sojourn as the paper’s Washington correspondent. He returned to Charleston in 1988 to become The Post and Courier’s Executive Sports Editor. In 1989, he became the paper’s full-time sports columnist.

Burger’s columns brought him state and national recognition with awards including the S.C. Sports Writer of the Year seven times by the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association; first place for columns in the Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest three times; S.C. Press Association’s Journalist of the Year in 1996, the first sports writer to win the award; and he received the Herman Helms Excellence in Media Award from the S.C. Athletic Hall of Fame in 2013.

In 2008, he became The Post and Courier’s metro columnist, where he continued to entertain readers and win writing awards until his retirement in 2011.

Burger authored a trilogy of novels including “Swallow Savannah,” “Sister Santee” and “Salkehatchie Soup.” Additionally, he published three collections of columns, “Life Through the Earholes of our Youth,” “Baptized in Sweet Tea” and “A Sporting Life.”

He also served in the U.S. Air Force Reserves from 1971-1991.