Hall of Honor Recipient
Bill Wundram, newspaper columnist and author, is a
1943 graduate of Davenport high where he was president of the senior
class. In 1989 wundram a member of the charter board of directors when
the Hall of Honors was founded at Central High School.
Wundram is one of the communities biggest
cheerleaders and is the only known columnist in America who writes
locally seven days a week. For over 20 years he has written about
8,000 columns and five books. He has been named Master Columnist by
the Iowa Press association, and doesn't limit his writing to
columns. He has covered Popes and Presidents. Of the latter, he
covered Hoover, the campaigns of Truman through Eisenhower and
Kennedy's up to the present. he has been a reporter, city editor,
associate editor, Sunday editor and lifestyle editor. in his reporting
years, Wundram once swept every category in the annual Iowa Associated
Press (features division) writing competition. While lifestyle editor,
his department's entries won national rating of best in the nation
in its circulation niche six times in the Penny-University of Missouri
workshops. The university/Penny Awards program for lifestyle pages
names him one of the four top editor-in all circulation's-in
America.
He is a contributor to national publications and
has authored five books. his 240 page "A Time We Remember",
is now in its third printing and is expected to ultimately reach
20,000 copies his latest fifth book is to be published in the spring.
In November, Davenport Public Library honored Wundram as "Author
of the Year."
Beyond column writing, Bill Wundram is a Quad-City
personality. He is a presenter, preaches in churches, emcees,
cuts ribbons, judges pie contest, is a commencement speaker and on
occasion is a clown for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey
Circus.
Wundram has also found time for community
service. Wundram, along with the mayor of Davenport and a
musician, were the three organizers of the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial
Jazz Society, and its nationally know Bix Jazz concerts in Davenport,
which gave birth to the Quad-City Times Bix 7, with 20,000 runners and
one of America's major road races. For 17 years he was the
chairman of Davenport's Halloween Mardi Gras. he was the
organizer and chairman of the first professional division of United
Way and he formed the Midwest's first version of Friends of the
Library and served as its president. Its format has been copied
by the National Library Association as a reading awareness and fund
raising arm. Long ago, when Scott County had no effective handle
on its homeless pet problem, he and several lawyers and do-gooders
formed the County Humane Society. Wundram has been president of
the Friends of Art, chairman of the Beaux Arts Ball and Grand Gallery
Ball. In 1999, he was named Citizen of the Year by the Moose
Lodges of Iowa. Bill Wundram has been in the newsroom fro 56
years. Bill Wundram was nominated by Lynda Moldinski.