Journalism professor and avid graphic-sock-wearer David Keith prepares to bid a bittersweet farewell to UCA faculty, students and staff after 19 years of teaching and 25 years of editing and reporting.
Keith, who has pledged his entire career to editing and reporting, began his career during his eighth-grade year after being put into a journalism class.
“I got stuck in a journalism class I didn’t want to be in,” Keith said. “But I found I kind of enjoyed the writing. I didn’t know anything, but I liked it.”
“I didn’t know anything, but I enjoyed that aspect of it and stayed in journalism. I grew to love the reporting aspect of it. I grew to love that more than the writing. I don’t mind writing, but it’s the reporting, finding out about stuff, the natural curiosity that reporters need, I have that.”
Keith then pursued a degree in journalism at Arkansas State University, which landed him a job at The Jonesboro Sun, where he worked for eight years.
While at the Sun, he met his wife, Tammy, where the journalism power-couple conquered Northeast Arkansas news until their move to Conway in 1990. Keith began working at the Log Cabin Democrat and eventually became managing editor.
“At that time, I thought, well, ‘I’ll just work in newspapers the rest of my life, maybe in some form,’” Keith said. “I spent a lot of my time at the Log Cabin as a managing editor. I was in charge of the editorial page as well. So, I was managing editor for 12 years. That means I produced roughly 365 times, 12 editorial pages, and editorials that I wrote.”
By 2005, Keith had been a part-time professor at UCA for two years, and after leaving the Log Cabin, he pursued a full-time position at UCA.
“When I told Donna Stephens that Tammy and I left the Log Cabin and didn’t have jobs, she said, ‘Well, let’s get you out here full time.’ She dragged me into the chair’s office. And by the end of that day, that had worked out, and I’ve been here, that was 19 and a half years ago.
“I taught for a year, but did I want to do this? I enjoyed teaching the one class, but do I want to do this full time? And I decided that I did.”
After accepting a full-time position, he started on a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock and completed his master’s in 2010. Keith then obtained his doctorate in mass communication from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2021.
While at UCA, Keith has taught various editing and reporting classes, where he implements his “gentle correcting.”
“I like to gently correct because the editors have to do that,” Keith said. “Editors don’t do it gently most of the time.”
“In the classroom, the thing that among the things that I try to emphasize is the importance of being right, of being correct in what you’re doing. I also try to emphasize the importance of being aware, of being aware of your world around you. So many stories I did as reporter were merely a result of me seeing something and saying, ‘I wonder what’s going on with that,’ ‘I wonder who that person is,’ or ‘I wonder why that road crew is out,’ so trying to develop an awareness, but also a natural curiosity that you need.”
Over the years, Keith says that there wasn’t a class he didn’t enjoy teaching, and his love for teaching is rooted in the students.
“They come into the classroom with all sorts of different ability levels, and also with all sorts of lives,” Keith said. “We have to recognize that, and recognize them as people first.
“One of the more satisfying things for me is to see students succeed, and to see students do well. Even more so, it’s that student who, at the first of the semester, is having a little trouble grasping it, but by the end of the semester, they figured it out. That’s one where you feel like, maybe I did make a little bit of a difference.”
Keith has been an advisor for The Echo since the fall of 2007, and credits working with student writers as a joy.
“Working with The Echo,” Keith said, “when they knock down some doors, or get that really strong story — a story that this campus needs to know — and they put in the hard work to do it. They don’t let the roadblocks and the silent people stop them from doing the reporting that they have to do, and they’re fearless in doing it. A lot of satisfaction in that — my real satisfaction is in seeing the students succeed and seeing The Echo succeed.”
Keith says the final goodbye will be bittersweet, but insists that he’s “an advisor for life.”
With his retirement, he plans to spend time with his wife Tammy and his granddaughter, Kennedy, whom he’s already teaching editing skills. He’s also plotting travels and many afternoons filled with golfing.
“I do not plan to sit around,” Keith said. “I will get involved in the community… Tammy and I would like to go places. I will say, I don’t plan to be a stranger out here.”
