Focus on the First Amendment

Lee Armstrong Lumpkin (B.A.'68) has never forgotten her father's lessons about the importance of the First Amendment.

Those lessons would help her become the first woman promoted to a general manager position at a Cox television station when she took over WHIO-TV in Dayton, Ohio, in 1997.

This year, she established the John William Armstrong Jr. Endowment in the Department of Communications in her father's honor. The endowment will be used to establish and run an annual advanced communications seminar that focuses on the First Amendment in the media, journalism ethics and public affairs reporting.

"The primary mission for me of the endowment is to make sure that people understand the responsibility that we have in media, a responsibility to be balanced, to be fair and to be relentless in pursuing the facts of things as opposed to the opinions of things," said Lumpkin, who recently retired from WSOC-TV in Charlotte, N.C., where she served as general manager since 2007.

Now, she's taking full advantage of her retirement. This past year, she traveled to Australia, New Zealand and Alaska. Lumpkin also is an active member of the College of Arts and Sciences board of visitors.

"I was very lucky. I did something I truly loved for a long time, and one of the great things about television was that everyday was a new day," Lumpkin said. "I consider myself very fortunate. "