AEJMC history division member Wally Eberhard passed away on October 7, 2018, his 87th birthday, after a short battle with pneumonia. This celebration of his life, a tribute offered by the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication, explores his lasting legacy as a gifted scholar, inspiring teacher, treasured mentor, dear friend and kind soul. Eberhard will be missed by all those who crossed paths with him, especially his friends in AEJMC’s history division.

One AEJMC history division member, Michael D. Murray, a University of Missouri Board of Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus, recently shared a reflection and some reminiscences about the life of Eberhard:

“Wally Eberhard and I shared an unusual bond – as journalism historians but also as reserve officers in the U.S. Army. Of course, when we first met through our mutual activity in the American Journalism Historian’s Association, Wally’s status (and his rank – both as an academic and military officer) far exceeded mine. But I never got the sense that he felt in any way superior. He always offered friendship, careful mentoring and considerable perspective on the field of journalism education while assisting in the development of AJHA, the academic organization we both had come to greatly appreciate – one which was still finding its way at that time. Like other senior scholars, Wally added depth and weight to the organization in a still emerging field and then later-on, as the editor of our academic journal, “American Journalism,” one which received support from one of the nation’s leading journalism schools at UGA. I discovered from early conversations with Wally that he had a number of contacts in the working world, the military, as well as academe. One early discussion we had centered on the varied assignments we held and I shared an experience from a faculty job interview I had at the University of Alabama. I learned on the interview that an Alabama Journalism professor I met on my visit to Tuscaloosa was also the same person whom, as an Army officer, had proposed and then developed the military specialty (or MOS) I held in broadcasting. Placing it “on the books” made it possible for officers in an area in which a broadcast journalists had developed expertise and ability to apply it to their appointment. Others of our breed and vintage could appreciate the importance. And Professor George Katz of Alabama, a friend of Wally’s, was well aware of the significance of the initiative he had advanced for those of us with that kind of background and interest.

Talks with Wally at the annual AJHA meetings were often filtered through the prism of service assignments we completed with additional insight from his research in military history. And while Wally and I completed our service in different eras and in different ways, we were often able to compare notes on the assignments we held and the craziness one might expect to endure when thrust into a new military environment with different expectations and often a quite eccentric “cast of characters.” Ironically, in my case, having endured duty assignments close to his adopted home in Georgia – first in Columbus, Georgia and then in Augusta – we shared some enduring “war stories” of life among drill instructors, including the proverbial challenges of “basic training.” In my case, this included “boot camp” at the Army’s Infantry School at Fort Benning during what a large number of folks from that era would later dub “The Summer of Love” (aka Woodstock Nation) or recalling Bryan Adam’s snappy “Summer of “69.” Then again, a few years later, back at the Army’s Southeastern Signal School, completing broadcast officer training at Fort Gordon. Wally and I shared a lot of laughs about the many common threads in our background – while he, always in understated manner, added considerable depth to my understanding of the field of journalism history and the role of the American military within that context.

Wally had an unusual ability focus on an event or individual and provide interesting details about press coverage. One of our last talks focused on a visit I made to the Normandy American Cemetery at Le Havre, France, where the account of what took place was provided in a film in the Cemetery Memorial narrated by former CBS broadcaster Dan Rather, whom I had just interviewed for “Journalism History.” Wally provided a very detailed account of how the foreign press covered the Allied Invasion, how the story was reported and how the Cemetery Memorial at Le Havre itself had developed. This kind of background was not at all surprising because a few decades earlier, it was inadvertently revealed to me by a book publisher that Wally had been the most careful, anonymous reader on a proposal I made for an early publishing project. The copious notes and detailed feedback I received had been reflective of someone very familiar with the literature of journalism history but also with an obviously very experienced editorial hand – a diplomat who could help make my scribbling more readable. And, of course, that was Wally.  It turned out that he had been helping me once again, actually, a great deal – and without my even knowing about it until much later. Wally was a very sharp, friendly, very clever and witty person. He was always understanding – and also understated. He enjoyed sharing knowledge but never in a haughty or braggadocious manner. He will be sorely missed by those who knew him and especially those he taught – both inside and outside the classroom.”