Henry Price, doctor of journalism
By John Temple Ligon
Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

Dr. Henry Price

Henry Price was born near Orlando, Fla. When Price was two, his parents moved the family to Lakeland, still in Central Florida.

Price stayed in Lakeland through high school where he played single- team football. On offense, he was a 6'- 1" end, and on defense he was a 190- lb. guard.

In college at USC, Price was a journalism major on a Navy ROTC scholarship, graduating in 1959 with fraternity brother and football great Alex Hawkins. Straight from school into the Navy, Price soon found himself in the rank of lieutenant junior grade on the deck on LST- 1160, christened the Traverse County.

For about 13 days in the fall of 1962, Price was a participant in the Cuban Missile Crisis, ready to move on Cuba if President Kennedy ordered. Cool heads overcame the crisis, and by early 1963, Price was out of the Navy.

Price enrolled again at USC, this time in the graduate school to earn his master's degree in journalism. Married, working all the time at The State , and getting through graduate school just about wore Price down. He was either the fourth or the fifth to graduate from USC's new graduate program at the J- School.

He did well and took his combined academic and work credentials with him to Michigan State University in East Lansing to start on his PhD in communication. After a year at Michigan State, Price needed to stay with the program, but he had to leave town for a job at the University of Missouri.

Price and his wife took their two children, daughter Jackie and son Scott, and moved to Columbia, Mo., where they stayed for four years. During this time Price taught journalism as an assistant professor.

In 1969, Price renewed ties at USC and became a full- time faculty member while cranking out PhD requirements for Michigan State.

Inflation, nurtured by the administrations of Nixon and Ford and Carter, was kind to Price. In 1969, he bought a house on Veterans Road for $27,000, and 10 years later sold it for $48,000. He took his money and moved to Hampton Trace, where he has lived ever since.

Price was recognized in 2000 as the Freedom Forum's Journalism Professor of the Year, which put Price at the top of all the journalism professors in the country.

The Freedom Forum is the country's largest, most prestigious arm of the journalism profession, mostly motivated by the First Amendment.

Price retired after 33 years in 2002. Within a year, he began teaching all- adult classes, where the students are driven by pumping value into their assigned job slots and by adding aspirations to their career choices.

Every worker and every executive in every field has to write regularly, and the need to write well, to effectively communicate using the fewest number of words, is where Price comes in.

His ideal classroom count is 21 students, and his ideal time frame is four hours, preferably in the morning hours before lunch.

Price recently finished a series of classes with the S.C. Forestry Department holding to his ideals of class size and teaching times. He looks forward to two opportunities with the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce: one on April 17 and another on May 27. For more information and to register,contact Sonya Chapman, schapman@columbiachamber.com.

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