An alumna of Missouri Southern has been named the first executive director of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri- Columbia.

A Carthage native, Pam Johnson worked at The Chart from 1965 to 1966 under adviser Cleetis Headley.

After graduating from MU’s School of Journalism in 1969, she went to work at the Joplin Globe from 1970 to1975.

Johnson later worked as assisting managing editor at the Kansas City Star where she shared the Pulitzer Prize with the Kansas City Times in 1982 for coverage of the collapse of the skywalks of the Hyatt Hotel.

In 2000, she was awarded the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism. Johnson’s mentor was late managing editor, Bob Chaplain who encouraged her to attend MU’s journalism school.

She began working in The Globe’s clipping morgue during college. She moved to Arizona in 1989 where she became executive editor at the Arizona Republic. She also worked at the Inghamton Press and Phoenix Gazette.

She became a member of the Leadership Faculty at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in 2001.

Dean Mills, dean of the journalism school at MU, said Johnson will begin her duties on Nov. 15.

She relocated from her home in St. Petersburg, Fla.

“I’m very pleased to be returning to Missouri to assume this important responsibility,” she said.

MU received a $31 million donation from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation for the creation of the Donald W. Reynolds Reynolds Journalism Institute.

This was the largest private donation MU has ever received.

The institute will be completed in 2007.