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Former Times editor honored

Indiana University awards an honorary degree to retired chairman Andrew Barnes.

By LEONORA LaPETER
Published May 8, 2005

Andrew Barnes, former chairman and chief executive of the St. Petersburg Times, received an honorary degree from Indiana University Saturday during commencement ceremonies at the school's Bloomington campus.

The school handed out 15,887 degrees to its students and four honorary degrees, including a doctor of humane letters to Barnes, 65.

"In university terms, it's the highest accolade that the university gives, so only people who are heads of state, politicians, authors, writers, people in the arts, people who are at the top of their field get honorary degrees," said Bill Elliott, director of the university's ceremonies.

During Barnes' years at the St. Petersburg Times, the paper won five Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic excellence. In 1998, he won the Nelson Poynter Civil Liberties Award, given each year by Florida's American Civil Liberties Union to the civil libertarian of the year.

The St. Petersburg Times has had a special connection with Indiana University that goes back to Nelson Poynter, an IU graduate who owned the Times until his death in 1978.

Barnes maintained that relationship by supporting a scholarship for the school's journalism majors. The St. Petersburg Times now has numerous graduates from Indiana University on its reporting and editing staff, including St. Petersburg Times chairman, CEO and editor Paul Tash, a 1976 graduate. He succeeded Barnes after his retirement in 2004.

"Andy Barnes picked up the enormous responsibilities for a creation that is unique in American journalism, a creation born of the hard-eyed Hoosier optimism of Nelson Poynter," Tash said.

Barnes, who received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1961, worked at the Providence (R.I.) Journal, the Washington Post and the St. Petersburg Times. He was chairman of the board that awarded this year's Pulitzer Prizes.

[Last modified May 8, 2005, 00:45:19]