Contact: Whitney Hale

Kentucky Secretary of Commerce Jim Host

Kentucky Auditor Crit Luallen

The fund-raiser will be held at the Crowne Plaza Lexington - The Campbell House, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Feb. 11. Tickets are $250 each; co-sponsorships are $500 per ticket. Invitations recently were mailed.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 27, 2005) -- The University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues (IRJCI) plans a fund-raising reception on Feb. 11 to finance an endowment to support the program. Illustrating the bipartisan support for the effort, the event will be hosted by two prominent Kentucky officeholders, Commerce Secretary Jim Host and state Auditor Crit Luallen.

Last summer, Host, a UK graduate in Radio Arts, offered to help IRJCI’s Interim Director Al Cross raise money for the endowment. Cross, former Courier-Journal political writer and contributing writer for the Louisville newspaper since October, wanted the event to be bipartisan. Host, who has long been active in Republican politics, agreed to co-sponsor an event with Luallen, a Democrat.

Luallen accepted the invitation and said, “I am delighted to support the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. Al Cross has had a stellar career as a consummate professional with unquestioned journalistic integrity. His leadership role in establishing the institute will ensure that its work will have a strong impact throughout the Commonwealth.”

Host added, “I'm looking forward to joining state Auditor Crit Luallen at a fun event for a worthy cause. I've always respected Al Cross as a journalist, and I'm pleased that he has signed on at my alma mater, the University of Kentucky, to lead the worthwhile and important effort to help non-metropolitan journalists define the public agenda for their communities and interpret rural issues for the national media.”

The event will support an endowment needed to give IRJCI a permanent home in UK’s School of Journalism and Telecommunications and to make it a force in American journalism. Beth Barnes, director of the School of Journalism and Telecommunications, is excited with the support IRJCI is receiving.

“It’s truly heartening to receive this kind of support from two very busy, hard-working state officials. I think their willingness to host this fund-raiser speaks to the importance of the IRJCI in furthering UK’s strategic goal of elevating the quality of life for Kentuckians,” she said.

The fund-raiser will be held at the Crowne Plaza Lexington - The Campbell House, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Feb. 11. Tickets are $250 each; co-sponsorships are $500 per ticket. Invitations recently were mailed. For more information, contact Al Cross at acros3@uky.edu or (859) 257-3744, or contact Janice Birdwhistell at (859) 257-4241.