William E. “Bill” Winter Scrapbook

William E. “Bill” Winter was born in 1917 in Missouri. He married Adalee Duckett, and the couple had two children, a son and a daughter.

After serving as a pilot in World War II, William Winter received his PhD in Journalism from the University of Missouri. The exact chronology of his career is not evident, but it is known that he lived and worked in South Carolina. While there, he wrote for "The State" and was a professor of journalism at the University of South Carolina. Records also indicate that he may have taught Journalism at the Universities of Arkansas and Florida.

In 1966 he transferred to the University of Alabama where he became the Chair of the Department of Journalism. Dr. Winter was the first member of their journalism faculty to hold an earned doctorate. As the department chair, he took on the challenge of returning status and accreditation to the journalism program. He was among fourteen faculty members who founded the new School of Communication and Information Sciences on July 1, 1973.

On March 6, 1974, Dr. Winter died unexpectedly. In his honor, the School of Communication dedicated its reading room to him. The William Winter Reading Room’s expansion began when members of the community including family, friends, and faculty contributed books and donated funds. What began as a few journals and newspapers in the anteroom to Dr. Winter’s office has grown to become an invaluable resource for students of the School of Communication and Information Sciences by providing books, periodicals, videos, a viewing room and a computer lab.