ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 8, 1996 TAG: 9611080104
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM
Lexington-raised newspaper columnist and one-time Roanoke Times cub reporter Charles McDowell has been given the National Press Club's highest honor, the Fourth Estate award.
McDowell, a longtime Washington correspondent for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, has covered Washington politics for more than 30 years. His column is syndicated nationally, and he's been a regular on public television's "Washington Week in Review" since the 1970s.
The press club award is another high point in a journalism career that got its start, albeit a humble one, at The Roanoke Times.
Back when McDowell was a student at Washington & Lee University in the late 1940s, Roanoke Times Managing Editor Bill Atkinson was teaching journalism at the college. He arranged for McDowell to cover Piedmont League baseball games on weekends.
McDowell got to try his hand at all kinds of stories before he went off to graduate school at Columbia University in New York. But when he finished, he headed for the Richmond paper, not back to Roanoke.
"Washington was closer to Richmond," he said, "and Washington was my objective."
The press club award puts him in a league with Walter Cronkite, Art Buchwald, and David Brinkley.
LENGTH: Short : 33 linesby CNB