Five Headliners Named for Press Club Award

              Shreveport Times Sunday, April 27, 1969
To Be Made Saturday
Five Headliners Named
For Press Club Award
Five personalities and four
organizations have been nominat-ed
for the Shreveport Press
Club's 1968 "Headliner of the
Year" award which will be
presented at the 1969 Gridiron
Show Saturday, at Convention
Hall.
The award is given annually
by a vote of the members to the
person or organization which the
newsmen feel have been the
biggest newsmakers in the city
during the preceding year.
Nominees are The Barn Dinner
Theater, the permanent profes-sional
theater company; The R.
S. Barnwell Family for the
Barnwell Botanical Gardens and
Cultural Center on the river-front;
The Shreveport Braves,
the Atlanta Braves farm team;
Van Cliburn. the internationally
known pianist who makes his
home here: Joe Ferguson, Wood-lawn
High School quarterback;
Woodiawn High School, for its
over-all athletic program; David
Houston, the singer of "Almost
Persuaded" fame who makes his
home here: Or. Edgar Hull, dean
of Louisiana Slate University
Medical .School in Shreveport,
which will open in September:
and A, L. Williams, Woodiawn
High School football coach.
Jim Montgomery, newsman for
KTBS-TV, who is head of the
Headliner Committee, will pre-sent
the awards at the Gridiron
Show which gets under way at 8
p.m. A hospitality hour wili start
at 6 p.m. and dinner will be
served at 7 p.m.
The Shreveport Sports Founda-tion
received the award for 1967.
Sinclair Kouns, foundation presi-dent,
accepted the award.
A special award was also
presented last year to Maj.
Richard Scott of Shreveport, who
made national headlines in Nov-ember,
1967, after leading troops
in the capture of Hill 875 in
Vietnam. The award was accept-ed
by his wife.
The 1966 honor went to Richard
W. Norton Jr. who was honored
[or the opening of the Norton Art
Galleries on Creswell Avenue.
Some 1,000 people are ex-pected
to attend the fifth annual
show when politicians take a
good-natured r o a s t i n g from
members of the press.
Gov. John J. McKeithen. and.
Shreveport Mayor Clyde E. Fant.
are among the dignitaries ex-pected
at the show.
Tickets for the show, which is
by invitation only, are $12, and
include the hospitality hour and
the steak dinner. Those who have
received invitations should make
reservations as soon as possible.
BIG JOHN IS SELLING but Gremillion
isn't buying what he has to sell in this
scene from the Shreveport Press Club's
5th annual Gridiron Show which will be
held Saturday at Convention Hall.
Times Artist P. A. "Pap" Dean (left)
will portray State Atty. Gen. Jack
Gremillion and Miller Bush will play
Gov. John McKeithen. A musical satire
in the tradition of gridiron perform-ances
nationwide, the show will spoof
local, state and national politicians. The
cast is composed largely of members of
the local news media. (Times Photo by
Langston McEachern).