Pryor Center Presents: 'KATV in Retrospect' Panel With Steve Barnes, Randy Dixon, Amy Oliver and Bob Steel

The Pryor Center Presents series hosted by the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences continues at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 21, with "KATV in Retrospect: Reflections on the History of TV News in Arkansas," featuring Steve Barnes, Randy Dixon, Amy Oliver, and Bob Steel, all formerly of KATV Channel 7. Kyle Kellams of KUAF Public Radio will moderate a conversation with these distinguished news veterans about the history of Channel 7, our digitized KATV News Collection, and their own broadcasting stories.

A native of Morrilton, Arkansas, Steve Barnes began his journalism career while still in high school, reporting football scores and the occasional political event to the Associated Press and United Press International. Then in 1968, while studying journalism and political science at what is now the University of Central Arkansas, Barnes became a reporter at KTHV-TV in Little Rock. He moved to KATV-TV in 1972 and to KARK-TV in 1986.

In 1987, Barnes created Editorial Associates, Inc. and began freelance work in both broadcast and print. That same year, he began hosting "Arkansas Week" and other public affairs programs on AETN and also began writing a twice-weekly column that appears in a dozen Arkansas newspapers. Barnes' work appears in the New York Times, Time and People magazines and the Reuters and Bloomberg news services. His work has appeared in The Progressive, the New York Times Magazine, Arkansas Times and numerous other publications.

Randy Dixon is the director of News Archives and Media for the Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Before coming to the Pryor Center, Dixon spent more than three decades of his media career at KATV News in Little Rock, beginning at age nineteen, and oversaw the donation of the KATV News Collection to the Pryor Center in 2009. He is now organizing the digitization of the archives.

Dixon was the news director at KATV, where he oversaw all aspects of news, weather, and sports coverage, and all local broadcasts.  His work has been recognized and honored within the news industry, receiving eleven regional Emmys, twenty-two regional and four national Edward R. Murrow awards, more than four dozen Associated Press awards and three Gold World Medals from the New York Festivals. In 2010, he was inducted into the Emmy's Silver Circle of Lifetime Achievement. 

Amy Oliver Barnes, APR, associate professor emeritus, is partially retired after nearly 50 years as a broadcast journalist and then as a public relations professional. She began her broadcast journalism career while still in college, reporting for a small radio station before being promoted to news director. From there, she moved to covering the entire state as a reporter, anchor, and producer for KATV and later as a producer, assignment editor, and assistant news director for KARK. She left commercial broadcasting in 1990 to become a writer and media relations representative for State Health Department director, Dr. Joycelyn Elders. From there, she moved to AETN as operations manager and public affairs producer for "Arkansas Week" and other network public affairs programming. 

After more than 25 years in broadcasting, she began a second career in the public relations field, serving as executive communications director at Arkansas Children's Hospital and then at University of Arkansas Little Rock. She joined the faculty in the UALR School of Mass Communication in 2006, and in 2018, she co-authored Public Relations Ethics: Senior PR Pros Tell Us How to Speak Up and Keep Your Job with Baylor University professor Marlene Neill.

Bob Steel is a former television news director of KARK and KATV with 16 years in news management and nearly three decades as a broadcast journalist in Arkansas.

Steel spent the majority of his broadcast career at KATV Channel 7 in Little Rock. Over the years, he held a wide range of roles including  radio newscaster, television reporter, sports anchor, news producer, assignment editor, executive producer, assistant news director, news director and account executive. He also worked in advertising and public relations at two Little Rock agencies, focusing primarily on media relations consulting. A veteran of the United States Air Force, Steel served four years as an audio-visual specialist.

Before retiring last year, Steel was Chief of Media Relations for the 19th Airlift Wing at Little Rock Air Force Base. He has been active in his community as well, serving on the boards of the Boy Scouts of America, Quapaw Area Council, and The First Tee of Little Rock.

Steel attended the University of Central Arkansas in Conway where he majored in journalism.

Moderator Kyle Kellams is the news director at 91.3, KUAF, the NPR affiliate for Northwest and Western Arkansas. Kellams started out in radio at local station KTLO while still in high school. While in college for broadcast journalism for the University of Arkansas, he worked for KUAF. After a few years at other endeavors, including being the news director for Fayetteville's KIX 104, Kellams returned to KUAF in a full-time capacity in 1989.

For thirty-five years starting in 1990, Kellams has also produced and hosted the station's news magazine, "Ozarks at Large." The program is heard every Monday through Friday at noon and 7:00 p.m. and Sunday morning at 9:00.

The Pryor Center is located at 1 E. Center St., Suite 120. The event is free and open to the public, and parking is available in the Town Center parking deck on East Ave.

About the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History: The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History is an oral history program with the mission to document the history of Arkansas through the collection of spoken memories and visual records, preserve the collection in perpetuity, and connect Arkansans and the world to the collection through the Internet, TV broadcasts, educational programs, and other means. The Pryor Center records audio and video interviews about Arkansas history and culture, collects other organizations' recordings, organizes these recordings into an archive, and provides public access to the archive, primarily through the website at pryorcenter.uark.edu. The Pryor Center is the state's only oral and visual history program with a statewide, seventy-five county mission to collect, preserve, and share audio and moving image recordings of Arkansas history.

About the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences: The Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is the largest and most academically diverse unit on campus with three schools, 16 departments and 43 academic programs and research centers. The college provides the majority of the core curriculum for all University of Arkansas students.

About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas' flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $2.2 billion to Arkansas' economy through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the few U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research News.