Pulitzer Prize Winners

Eleven UT Alumni have won 13 Pulitzer Prizes. Owen Davis, who attended UT as a subfreshman in 1888-89, received the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play Ice-Bound in 1923. Bernadotte Everly Schmitt (BA in chemistry, 1904) received the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1931 for The Coming of War: 1914. John M. Hightower, who attended UT in 1927–29 and became an Associated Press foreign correspondent, received the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1952 for coverage of events related to the Korean conflict. John Noble Wilford (BS in journalism, 1955) received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1984 on a variety of science topics and again in 1987, as part of the staff of the New York Times, which covered the Challenger disaster. John Netherland Heiskell, class of 1893, was editor and president of the Arkansas Gazette when it won a Pulitzer in 1958 for its stand in the Little Rock school crisis of 1957. Edward Osborne Wilson, who attended in 1950–51, received the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction for his book On Human Nature and again in 1991 (with Bert Hölldobler) for The Ants. David Hall, editor of the Denver Post, led that newspaper as it won a Pulitzer in 1986 for its seven-month series of articles on missing children. Cormac McCarthy (attended in 1951–52 and 1957–60) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007 for The Road. Ron Kirksey (BS, 1970) was a member of the staff of the Akron Beacon Journal, which won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for broad examination of local racial attitudes and the subsequent effort to promote improved communication in the community. UT Adjunct faculty member Alex Haley also was a Pulitzer Prize winner.