Siddons - G. Patrick
Source: Unknown
G. Patrick Siddons
Inducted 2001
G. Patrick (Pat) Siddons did not grow up with a life-long
desire to be a journalist. Although he loved to read as a
youngster, the Ellettsville, Ind., native loved cars even more.
As a teenager he worked in gasoline stations performing such
tasks as changing oil, lubricating cars and washing them. Half a
century later he was to say he might still be pumping gas if it
hadn't been for World War II. Well, not the war exactly, but the
help he got from the GI Bill of Rights in getting an
education.
Siddons enlisted in the Army after graduation from
Bloomington's University High School in 1942. His anti-aircraft
artillery unit saw action in the South Pacific where he was
awarded battle stars for the New Guinea and Southern Philippines
campaigns, Asiatic-Pacific Theater Ribbon with two bronze stars,
and Philippine Liberation Ribbon with one bronze star.
When he was discharged in 1945, Sgt. Siddons joined three
friends in taking advantage of the GI Bill to study electrical
engineering at Purdue University. He decided to transfer to
Indiana University after a schoolmate's wife read one of his
composition themes and commented, "What in the world are you
doing at Purdue? You should transfer to Indiana University and
study journalism." That praise for his writing along with his
admitted lack of aptitude for engineering sent him from West
Lafayette to Bloomington where his love for journalism began to
match his talent for writing.
"I learned about newspapers through my work on the Indiana
Daily Student," he recalled years later, "and I still remember
the heady feeling I got from putting words on paper, the thrill
of watching the Linotype operator create words in metal, and of
watching that old flat-bed press crank out copies of a paper that
actually contained stories I had written. I thought it was a
miracle."
After earning his degree in 1950 he began his journalism
career by taking a job at The Crawfordsville Journal-Review.
After stints as sports editor and night editor there he moved on
to newspaper jobs at The Michigan City News-Dispatch, The
Louisville Times and The Louisville Courier-Journal and public
relations positions with Westinghouse Electric Corp. and the
Indiana Republican Party. Along the way he won the Chris Savage
Memorial Award for excellence in reporting. In 1979 he returned
to IU to become publisher of the Indiana Daily Student and
adjunct associate professor of journalism. In 1983 Siddons was
cited by the College Media Advisers for "outstanding service so
student publications, to Indiana University and to the nation's
student press" and presented the group's Distinguished Newspaper
Adviser award.
He retired from the university in 1978, but he continues to do
media consulting and to write. Looking back on his years of
reporting and editing Siddons recalled: "I know now have known
for many years, in fact that this is the only field in which I
could have been successful, and the only field in which I could
have had so many great experiences, so many wonderful
relationships, so much fun, and such a tremendous feeling of
having done something worthwhile. And that heady feeling that I
had first experienced while I was a student it never
subsided."