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Virginia's Journey, Lynn E. Niedermeier

Lynn E. Niedermeier

The forty-year journalism career of Smiths Grove, Kentucky native Virginia Wood Davis (1919-1990) took her to fourteen newspapers in seven Southern states. While breaking down barriers for women as both a reporter and editor, this self-described “hillbilly to hillbillies” lived an extraordinarily independent and frugal life. After she died, those who had always thought of her as poor were astonished at the size of her bequest to her alma mater, Western Kentucky University. This biographical sketch draws from Davis’s own memoir and a collection of her papers housed at Western Kentucky University.