vance_henry_trimble

Vance Henry Trimble

Vance Henry Trimble (b. July 6, 1913) portrait bust sculpted from life by Zenos Frudakis. He earned the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in recognition of his exposé of nepotism and payroll abuse in the U.S. Congress.

Trimble has worked over fifty years in the newspaper business. In 1955, when he was news editor at the Scripps Howard Washington bureau, Trimble came across a book, published 30 years earlier, about nepotism in Congress. This led him to investigate current Congress payrolls where he discovered that twenty percent of the Congress had family members on their payroll. His news story was published in the Washington Daily News, followed by related daily articles for six months. As a result, Lyndon Johnson opened up the Senate payroll records to bring them up to date.

In recognition of this work, in 1960, Trimble was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, the Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Correspondence Record for Washington coverage, and the Raymond Clapper Awardreferred to as the "triple crown". 

Size: Life size, sculpted from life
Media: Bronze
Location:  Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame

Collections: 

  • Permanent collection of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame
  • Additional castings in private collections