Officers

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Dr. Jerry Goodwin, LP.D, MBA, is assistant professor of strategic and mass communication at Tulsa Community College. He is a former adjunct professor in graduate studies in marketing at the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and Research at Langston University-Tulsa. Over the last 22 years, Dr. Goodwin has taught courses in journalism and digital media, communications, and business, where his students have won countless national, regional, state, and local awards in journalism annually. He is a faculty member of the Oklahoma Collegiate Media Association.

Dr. Goodwin is a third-generation journalist and former assistant to the publisher/COO of the award-winning The Oklahoma Eagle, the 10th oldest African American weekly newspaper in the country. During his tenure at the newspaper, he was instrumental in helping the news organization to increase its rank from #13 to #3 among newspapers in its category in the number of awards received by the Oklahoma Press Association. He is a founding member of the National Association of Black Journalists – Tulsa chapter. He is a former board member with the Tulsa Advertising Federation and Tulsa Press Club. 

In addition to his years of experience in education and newspaper publishing, he has played a pivotal role as a mayoral appointment on the board of directors for the City of Tulsa/Rogers County Port of Catoosa. The Port is the nation’s most inland waterway system and a major industrial development employer in northeastern Oklahoma. Serving as a board member for 27 years, Dr. Goodwin is currently the longest-serving member and the second longest to serve as board chair over the Port’s 50-year history.

Dick Pryor is general manager of KGOU Radio, which serves more than one million Oklahomans with news, public affairs and entertainment programming. KGOU - Your NPR Source is a

community-supported service of the University of Oklahoma Outreach.

Pryor has more than 40 years of experience in television, radio, public relations, law and government service. He earned a B.A. in Journalism and a J.D. from the University of Oklahoma. In 2015, he was chosen a Distinguished Alumnus of the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at OU.

Pryor was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame in 2009. 

M. Scott is chief political reporter for The Oklahoman. He is a sixth-generation Oklahoman with more than four decades of journalism experience. He is a four-time winner of the Associated Press-Oklahoma News Editors Sweepstakes Award and worked as the State Capitol Bureau Chief and an investigative reporter for the Journal Record for many years. Later in his career, he was an investigative reporter for the ACLU of Oklahoma, a non-profit organization dedicated to the Bill of Rights. Carter also taught journalism, feature writing and photojournalism at Oklahoma City Community College and served as the faculty adviser for the college’s student newspaper, The Pioneer.

Previously, he worked for newspapers in Stillwater, Cushing, Blackwell and Norman and as a stringer for the Associated Press, the Dallas Morning News, Sport Magazine and United Press International.

He is also a published novelist and winner of the 2012 Oklahoma Book Award for Young Adults. Carter earned the 2012 Gold Award for Young Adult Fiction from the National Association of Independent Book Publishers and Foreword Magazine’s 2012 Good Award for YA Fiction.

Carter and his wife Karen have six children, two dogs, one lizard and several poorly-behaved cats.

Dr. William Hickman is currently adjunct professor of mass communication at Rose State College in Midwest City, Okla. and professor emeritus of mass communication at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, Okla. He is a native of Oklahoma City. He received his B.A. in journalism from Oklahoma Baptist University, an M.L.A. from Texas Christian University and a J.D. from Oklahoma City University School of Law. He is admitted to practice law in the state of Oklahoma.

His academic interests are in the Internet and social media as a news and information source, media law, military-media relationships and newsroom management. He is a distance runner, competing in several marathons including the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. He lives in Edmond.

Heide Brandes is an award-winning journalist and editor with more than
20 years of published work. As an investigative reporter for numerous
newspapers and for Reuters News Service, Heide now freelances fulltime
for such publications as The Smithsonion, AARP, National Geographic, BBC Travel,
Cowboys & Indians, Southern Living, Roadtrippers, Sierra Magazine, ROVA, Travel Awaits, Huffington Post and more. She also has bylines in such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Houston Chronicle, SFGate, The Wall Street Journal,
Hemispheres and others.

Heide earned a Society for American Travel Writers’ Lowell Thomas
Award in 2019 and 2021 and has numerous gold, silver, bronze and honorable mention awards from The North American Travel Journalists Association.
She serves as president of the Society for Professional Journalists Oklahoma Pro-Chapter and is a guest lecturer at regional universities and schools.

Her work can be seen at  ww.heidebrandes.com.

Besides freelancing fulltime, Heide is an avid traveler, medieval warrior, hiker, professional bellydancer and bellydance instructor and kind of a quirky chick who lives in Oklahoma City.

Telling stories is what Kristi Eaton has done for the majority of her life - first as a young writer telling fiction stories from her bedroom. Later, she transitioned to hard news reporter, working for The Associated Press for four years. 

She has reported or conducted communications work in Asia, Africa, Europe, Oceania and North America.

As a strategic communicator, she has  acted as an editor and writer for the Fistula Foundation and Alive and Thrive, an initiative to promote positive nutrition practices in West Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Other past and present clients include Sparkle, which makes biodegradable period products; Heifer International; and The Hunger Project.

She has earned media placement for clients in The Associated Press, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Next City, TechCrunch, Devex and elsewhere.

Andrew Griffin is a professional journalist and author with for over 30 years’ experience in unbiased factual reporting including 12 years as an editor and news director. 

His special focus includes politics, American and regional history, business, pop culture, conspiracy background, investigative pieces, and live event coverage.

He was also the publisher and owner of Red Dirt Report  from July 2007 to March 2020. 

The website was dogged in its coverage of Oklahoma news, politics, entertainment, sports, and opinion. It was recognized statewide as a respected, unbiased and factual source of information about things going on in Oklahoma and beyond. 

He self-published his first book: Rock Catapult: 1966 – The Launch of Modern Rock & Roll. (West Marie Media / 2018). 

He recently finished writing a novel – Talbot Finch and The Stilwell Enigma. 

 Dr. Mark Hanebutt is professor of journalism in the department of mass communication at UCO. A native of Evansville, Indiana, he holds a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from the University of Evansville, a master of arts degree in English from the University of Central Oklahoma and a juris doctor degree in law from the Oklahoma City University School of Law. Dr. Hanebutt was named to the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame in 2024. He has worked for newspapers in Indiana and Florida, including The Orlando Sentinel, as a reporter, magazine writer, syndicated feature writer and editor. His work has appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country. He is the author of The Journalist’s Primer: A No-Nonsense Guide to Getting and Reporting the News (Kendall Hunt 2023). 

He teaches courses in news reporting and media law. His research areas include reporting, law, history, ethics and propaganda.

 John A. Small is the Managing Editor and (with Publishers Tom and Mary Lokey) co-founder of the Johnston County Sentinel, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. He came to Tishomingo (his mother’s birthplace) in 1991 and spent the next three and a half years as reporter and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat. Following a two-year stint as News Editor at the Durant Daily Democrat, he returned to the C-D as News Editor in 1997 and remained there until January of 2018, when the Sentinel was founded as the successor publication to the Capital-Democrat. 

To date his work as a journalist has earned him more than 250 awards from various organizations, including the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He is also a published author who has written several books of his own and contributed to several anthologies.

Dr. Philip Todd is a longtime journalist and media scholar with more than 30 years’ experience in newspapers, magazines, textbooks, reporting, editing, design, radio, and instruction. He teaches mass communication at East Central University, and previously taught at Seminole State College, the University of Oklahoma, St. Gregory’s University, Oklahoma Baptist University, the University of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University and Spencerian College. 

He has presented and published work on topics ranging from media pedagogy and ethics to musicology. Most recently, his OU dissertation was named the 2020 Penn State Davis Ethics Award winner for best media ethics-related research. 

In addition to causing whatever trouble he can in Shawnee over the past 20 years, he also serves as copy editor and consultant for Peace Studies, a quarterly publication of The Peace and Justice Studies Association; and does publicity and planning for ProgDay, an annual outdoor progressive rock festival in North Carolina.