Former Bulletin
editor and UH
professor honored

Star-Bulletin editor
Dave Shapiro and professor
Bev Keever will be recognized

Star-Bulletin staff

David Shapiro, retired Honolulu Star-Bulletin managing editor, has been selected to receive the 2001 Fletcher Knebel Award for his outstanding contribution to media excellence in Hawaii.

Also selected to receive the award this year is University of Hawaii journalism professor Bev Keever.

"Usually we select one. But we picked both Dave and Bev, Dave for the working press and Bev for academic work," said Ah Jook Ku, executive secretary of the Honolulu Community-Media Council.

"Both of them are very thorough," she said.

Shapiro became managing editor of the Star-Bulletin in 1987. He is described by his nominator, Star-Bulletin night city desk editor Stirling Morita, as the paper's "driving force ... its soul."

Morita credits Shapiro with realizing "The Broken Trust" essay about the former Bishop Estate trustees was a scoop with major ramifications for Hawaii and arranging its prompt publication.

Keever is a professor of journalism with 20 years' experience at the University of Hawaii. She served seven years as a war correspondent in Vietnam -- longer than any other Western correspondent -- and in 1969 was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her articles from and on the besieged outpost of Khe Sanh. Keever is also a recipient of the UH Regents' Medal of Excellence in teaching.

The Honolulu Community-Media Council will present the awards at its 30th Anniversary Celebration Dinner this Saturday at the Halekulani Hotel. The event costs $65 and reservations can be made at 222-3035.

The award is named in honor of syndicated Washington columnist and author Fletcher Knebel, who moved to Hawaii in the early 1980s and was an active member and chairman of the Honolulu Community-Media Council until he died in 1993.