Lucile Morris Upton landed her first newspaper job out West in the early 1920s, then returned home to spend half a century reporting on the Ozarks world she knew best. Having come of age just as women gained the right to vote, she took advantage of opportunities that presented themselves in a changing world. During her years as a journalist, Upton rubbed shoulders with presidents, flew with aviation pioneer Wiley Post, covered the worst single killing of US police officers in the twentieth century, wrote an acclaimed book on the vigilante group known as the Bald Knobbers, charted the growth of tourism in the Ozarks, and spearheaded a movement to preserve iconic sites of regional history. Following retirement from her newspaper job, she put her experience to good use as a member of the Springfield City Council and community activist.
University of Arkansas Press spotlight author, Susan Croce Kelly, will discuss her book, Newspaperwoman of the Ozarks: The Life and Times of Lucile Morris Upton. Told largely through Upton’s own words, this insightful biography captures the excitement of being on the front lines of newsgathering in the days when the whole world depended on newspapers to find out what was happening.
Susan Croce Kelly was a reporter at Lucile Morris Upton’s own Springfield News-Leader. She is the author of Route 66: The Highway and Its People and the managing editor of Ozarks Watch at Missouri State University’s Ozarks Studies Institute.
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