Media Wall Of Fame

 

BERNARD KILGORE '29

Inducted: DECEMBER 3, 1993

Bernard Kilgore, 1929 DePauw graduate, was credited upon his death at the age of 59 on November 14, 1967, with being "the man who changed The Wall Street Journal from a small financial newspaper into the nation’s only national daily." In 38 years with The Journal, he revolutionized its news coverage, built its circulation, expanded its technology and widened its profitability.

Mr. Kilgore joined The Journal as a 20 year-old reporter fresh out of DePauw, hired by general manager Kenneth C. Hogate. Mr. Kilgore rose quickly at The Journal from copy editor, to San Francisco news editor by 1931, to editorial page columnist when he was 24 in 1932, to Washington bureau manager in 1935, to managing editor in 1941, to vice president and general manager in 1942, to president of all of Dow Jones & Co. in 1945 at age 36, and to chairman of the board in 1966.

At DePauw, Mr. Kilgore was a Rector Scholar and editor of both The DePauw and the Mirage; achieved Phi Beta Kappa; was a member of the Student Council, Political Science Club, Scabbard and Blade, Mask and Gavel, Blue Key, Delta Sigma Rho debate society, Sigma Delta Chi journalistic society and Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.


Kilgore in the 1926 Mirage
Mr. Kilgore was a member of DePauw’s Board of Trustees for 13 years and twice was elected the board’s president. He received from his alma mater an honorary L.L.D. degree in 1951 and the Old Gold Goblet in 1955.

The Kilgore Counselor program at DePauw, founded in his memory in 1969, each year brings to DePauw’s campus two professional journalists to work with The DePauw staff.

Mr. Kilgore was born November 9, 1908, in Albany, Indiana, and grew up in South Bend.

 

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