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Submitted: 1/19/12 • Approved: 5/31/12 • Last Updated: 8/3/12 • R638686-G638686-S3
Walter John Lemke
January 6, 1891- December 4, 1968
Journalist Professor Historian Genealogist Mentor
Walter John Lemke was born in Wausau, Wisconsin to Carl Lemke and Ulrika Block Lemke. He attended the University of Wisconsin and the University of Indiana. He received his AB degree from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio in 1911. The college later awarded him an honorary doctor of letters degree in 1962. He earned his MS in journalism from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He married Marie Hamp Nov 24 1916, and they had two children.
In 1928, Lemke was hired by UA to establish a department of journalism and was the university publicist and supervised campus publications. He served as head of the journalism department until his retirement in 1959. In the 1930s, Lemke, a self-taught cartoonist, created weekly cartoons focusing on Arkansas history. The University of Arkansas named the journalism department the Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism in his honor in 1988.
Lemke founded several historical and journalistic organizations. Lemke founded the Arkansas High School Press Association and edited its bulletin for twenty-seven years. With Roberta Fulbright, Lemke was one of the founders of Arkansas Press Women in 1949. He helped organize the Washington County Historical Society in 1951. He served as the first editor of “Flashback”, the society’s journal, until 1968, and wrote many historical booklets on genealogy and early Washington County history, including Cane Hill, Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the Battle of Prairie Grove, and the Tibbett’s House. He served on the advisory board of the Prairie Grove Battlefield Commission when it was founded in 1958. Lemke also helped organize the Arkansas Genealogical Society and edited its bulletin for a few years, beginning in 1962. During World War II, Lemke wrote "Uncle Walt's Newsletter" and circulated it in mimeograph format to hundreds of Arkansas military personnel.
In 2001, the university’s journalism department started an annual eight-week journalism workshop for minority high school students in Lemke’s honor. About twenty high school students attend the workshop, where they learn how to report, write, and publish their newspaper, “The Multicultural News”.
Walter J. Lemke is buried in Evergreen Cemetery near the University of Arkansas Campus next to his wife.
Of Interest: http://www.fayettevillehistory.com/photos/historic_homes/index.html
Sources: http://libinfo.uark.edu/specialcollections/findingaids/Lemke/ http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2923
Contributed on 1/19/12 by c58moore80
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Record #: 638686