WDBJ7 Roanoke News and Weather NRV Lynchburg Danville | WDBJ7 veteran Ron MacDonald receives big honor

WDBJ7 veteran Ron MacDonald receives big honor

A veteran of WDBJ7 and Washington and Lee University is among the newest members of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame.
 
Ron MacDonald was inducted Thursday night in Richmond.

He had two distinguished careers; first as a pioneering broadcaster for almost 20 years, and later as an influential college professor for more than 30.
 
On Thursday night, his widow Pat Irons joined four other honorees in Richmond, as Virginia Commonwealth University recognized the newest members of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame.

MacDonald joined WDBJ radio and television in 1956.  He would serve as a reporter, editor, anchor and news director.

In 1969, Washington and Lee came calling, and MacDonald made the move from the anchor desk to the college classroom.  During his years in Lexington, MacDonald taught journalism courses, headed the department, supervised more than 700 interns, helped create the school's journalism ethics program, and wrote the book "A Broadcast News Manual of Style."
 
Several of MacDonald's former students and colleagues were in the audience Thursday night.  Journalism Department Head Brian Richardson represented both.

"What he gave all of us as journalists and as people just cannot be repaid," said Richardson.  "I am just so pleased that the Hall of Fame has recognized Ron this way.  He richly deserved it.  I only wish he could have been here to see it, but... I think he knows."

"He was so thrilled whenever he would see one of his students, either on television or something that he had read that they had done, and he would always say 'This is one of my kids, he's one of mine,'" says Irons.

On his retirement in 2001, MacDonald said it was his students, in newsrooms across the country, that he counted as his greatest accomplishment.  Through them, Pat Irons said Thursday night, Ron MacDonald lives on.