Campus Community
Posted: Thursday, November 19, 2009Communication Hall of Fame to Induct Newspaper Publisher
Don DePerro, a 1981 journalism graduate of Buffalo State College’s Communication Department, will be inducted into the Communication Hall of Fame on Friday, November 20. The ceremony will be held at 5:00 p.m. in the television studio of the Donald Savage Theater Arts Building and will include the induction of new students to the Rho Psi Chapter of the Lambda Pi Eta national communication honor society.
DePerro, president and publisher of Columbus Business First in Columbus, Ohio, joins 14 other alumni who compose the department’s Hall of Fame. A former editor of Buffalo State’s student newspaper, the Record,DePerro began his career at the Niagara Falls Gazettebefore joining American City Business Journals in 1984. He was part of a start-up team for the company’sBusiness First of Buffalo. Two years later, DePerro was promoted to managing editor of the company’s Charlotte, North Carolina, paper, and two years after that to editor.
In 1991, he was named president and publisher of theJacksonville Business Journal, where he served for nearly five years, assembling and leading a team that took a failing paper and developed it into one of American City’s most profitable small-city business newspapers. DePerro was named president and publisher of Business First in Columbus in 1996, a post he has held since then.
Named the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Media Advocate of the Year for the state of Florida, DePerro has received five American City Eagle Awards for Excellence as both an editor and publisher—the highest honor awarded to American City associates.
DePerro has served on the boards of Action for Children; the former Business Technology Center at the Ohio State University, now TechColumbus; the Capital Club; the Columbus Foundation’s Information and Marketing Committee; the Columbus Chamber of Commerce’s Marketing Steering Committee; and Leadership Columbus’ Board and Executive Committee.
In 2005, he served as general chairman of the American Heart Association’s Columbus Heart Walk. He also is the standing chairman of the Mid-Ohio Food Bank’s annual fundraiser.
Friday’s ceremony will also recognize the Communication Department’s scholarship winners and new students in Buffalo State’s Rho Psi Chapter of the Lambda Pi Eta national communication honor society. Inductees must carry an overall GPA of 3.0 with at least 60 credits completed. They also must have a major GPA of 3.25 and must have completed at least 12 credits in their major at Buffalo State. They represent the top 10 percent of the department’s students.
