The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has received a $1.4 million bequest to benefit its School of Mass Communication.

The bequest of $1,407,786, establishes the Dan and Johnnie Winn Memorial Scholarship in the College of Social Sciences and Communication at UALR.

The funding will provide financial assistance for any education-related expense, including but not limited to tuition, books, and fees for students pursuing degrees in the School of Mass Communication, with preference given to those majors whose career emphasis is journalism and/or radio.

“This endowment will significantly aid us in recruiting high quality students to our program,” said Olaf Hoerschelmann, director of the School of Mass Communication.

“We are grateful for this gift and humbled by its generosity,” said Dr. Lisa Bond-Maupin, dean of the College of Social Sciences and Communication.

“I regret never having met the Winns and vow that their support will be used to grow the journalists and radio professionals of the future,” she added.

Funding for the gift comes from the estate of Dan and Johnnie Winn, both of whom had a particular fondness for mass communication, especially radio.

Johnnie Winn, who was 100 when she passed away Aug. 21, 2013, was the first licensed woman amateur radio operator in Arkansas. Her husband, the late Dan Winn, was a radio pioneer and one of the industry’s most respected figures until his death at 86 in 1998.

He began his career in New Orleans and was behind the creation of 30 radio stations in Arkansas after coming to Little Rock on what was supposed to be a temporary assignment.

He was the former chief engineer at radio station KARK, now KARN-AM 920, in Little Rock, from 1930 to 1977. He left that station to form his own firm and help establish the Arkansas Radio Network.

Winn was honored twice by the Arkansas Broadcasters Association, was a member of the National Radio Pioneers, and was president of the Little Rock Institute of Radio Engineers.

In 1966, he received the Arkansas Broadcasters Association Pioneer Award and was granted life membership to the association in 1982. He also served as past chairman of the Arkansas Emergency Broadcast System and the Advisory Board of Education Radio at UALR.

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