Bowling Green, Ky. - Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts will visit Western Kentucky University’s School of Journalism and Broadcasting on Dec. 8 for the 2005 Gaines Lecture Series.

Pitts will speak at 7 p.m. at the Mass Media and Technology Hall Auditorium. The lecture is free and open to the public.

“We are thrilled to have such an excellent speaker and prestigious journalist joining us for our second Gaines Lecture Series,” said Pam McAllister Johnson, director of the School of Journalism and Broadcasting.

Pitts, a columnist at The Miami Herald, was awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

Twice each week, millions of newspaper readers around the country seek out his rich and uncommonly resonant voice. In a word, he connects with them. Nowhere was this demonstrated more forcefully than in the response to his initial column on the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Pitts’ column, “We’ll Go Forward From This Moment,” an angry and defiant open letter to the terrorists, circulated the globe via the Internet. It generated upwards of 30,000 emails, and has since been set to music, reprinted in poster form, read on television by Regis Philbin and quoted by Congressman Richard Gephardt as part of the Democratic Party’s weekly radio address.

In 1997, Pitts took first place for commentary in division four (newspapers with a circulation of more than 300,000) in the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors’ Ninth Annual Writing Awards competition. He also has been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Black Journalists and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He is a five-time recipient of the National Headliners Award.

In 2001, he received the American Society of Newspaper Editors prestigious ASNE Award For Commentary Writing and was named Feature of the Year--Columnist by Editor and Publisher magazine. In 2002, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists awarded Pitts its inaugural Columnist of the Year award. Also in 2002, GLAAD Media awarded Pitts the Outstanding Newspaper Columnist award.

Pitts joined The Miami Herald in 1991 as its pop music critic. Since 1994, he has penned a syndicated column of commentary on pop culture, social issues and family life. His most recent book, “Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood,” was released in May 1999.

Pitts has been writing professionally since 1976 when, as an 18-year-old college student, he began doing freelance reviews and profiles for SOUL, a national black entertainment tabloid. Two years later, he was its editor. Since then, Pitts’ work has appeared in such publications as Musician, Spin, TV Guide, Reader’s Digest and Parenting. In addition, he wrote, produced and syndicated “Who We Are,” an award-winning 1988 radio documentary on the history of black America, and has written and produced numerous other radio programs on subjects as diverse as Madonna and Martin Luther King Jr. Pitts was also a writer for radio’s popular countdown program, “Casey’s Top 40 with Casey Kasem.”

Pitts was born and raised in Southern California. Since 1995, he has lived in Bowie, Md., a suburb of Washington, D. C., with his wife and five children.

The Gaines Lecture Series started last year to commemorate the 150-year anniversary of the Daily News, the Bowling Green newspaper owned by the Gaines family. Last year’s speaker was Pete Souza from the Chicago Tribune and formerly Ronald Reagan’s presidential photographer.

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For information, contact Jeanie Adams-Smith at (270) 745-6301.