Two men whose contributions to the journalism profession in West Virginia are well known are being honored by the WVU Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism Alumni Association Saturday, April 8, at 6 p.m. at the Pines Country Club.

Robert M. Rine, retired public relations assistant director for Weirton Steel, will receive the schools P.I. Reed Achievement Award, and G. Ogden Nutting, president and publisher of Ogden Newspapers, Inc. will receive the Paul A. Atkins Friend of the School Award.

Rine, who retired from Weirton Steel in 1982, worked for the company for nearly 25 years. He began his career as a reporter for the Huntington Advertiser and later the Wheeling News-Register. A 1952 graduate of WVUs School of Journalism, he is a former member of the schools visiting committee and also served on the Board of Directors of the WVU Foundation.

A Weirton resident, Rine is past president of the Weirton Rotary Club, a former Brooke County magistrate and former chairman of the Weirton Housing Authority.

Wheeling resident G. Ogden Nutting owns seven West Virginia dailies and two weeklies as well as 29 other daily newspapers in 10 states as president and publisher of Ogden Newspapers.

The company was founded some 110 years ago by Nuttings grandfather, H. C. Ogden, who published the first edition of the Wheeling News in September 1890. Nutting worked as a reporter, news editor and on the copy desk of the Wheeling and Martinsburg papers before becoming general manager, then president/publisher.

His sons, Robert and William, are the fourth generation of the family to direct and manage the states largest newspaper company, headquartered in Wheeling.

A 1956 graduate of Williams College, Nutting has been active in WVU life for many years, serving on the WVU Foundation Board of Directors since 1988 and as a former member of the Journalism Schools visiting committee. He established the Nutting Family Journalism Endowment Scholarship Fund for juniors and seniors studying print media, and the family also created a WVU Journalism Library Endowment Fund.

In 1966 he received WVUs Most Loyal West Virginian Award for his service to WVU and the state, and last year was honored with the Universitys Distinguished Service Award for exceptional leadership.

Nutting has served on boards of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the West Virginia Press Association, which named him a”Life Member”in 1994. He also serves on boards for United Bankshares, the Pittsburgh Pirates, Bethany College, Linsly School, Wheeling Park Commission and the Stone Foundation.

Special AP correspondent and award-winning journalist George Esper is the guest speaker at the April 8 event. Esper is currently teaching at WVU this semester as the visiting Shott Chair in Journalism.

The April 8 banquet and awards ceremony coincides with Journalism Week on campus, which features a women war correspondents panel, former NBC correspondent Ed Rabel and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Carol Guzy of the Washington Post, among others.