Henderson native Gary Hairlson, the recently retired multimedia director at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who had a 40-plus-year career as a photojournalist, will be honored this fall by the Student Publications organization at Western Kentucky University.
Hairlson has been selected as the 2025-26 recipient of the Friend of Student Publications Award.
He will be presented with the award at the 75th Student Publications Homecoming Breakfast on Nov. 1.
For generations, Hairlson has been a familiar face at WKU Student Publications as the photo director for its summer workshops since 1981, as a mentor to scores of student photojournalists, as a supervisor during internships and as a visiting professional during the annual career days for the WKU visual journalism and photography program.
After joining the Post-Dispatch photo staff in 1999, Hairlson worked as picture editor, assignments editor and assistant director of photography and video director before being named multimedia director. During his time at the Post-Dispatch, the photography team was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for their coverage of the despair and anger in Ferguson, Missouri, following the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014.
Before joining the Post-Dispatch, he worked as a photo editor at the Pensacola News Journal in Florida from 1994-1999.
Hairlson got his start in photography as a junior at Henderson County High School and working part-time for The Gleaner, where he was mentored by WKU alums Donnie Beauchamp and Scott Robinson.
He attended WKU from 1980-1982. He was hired as the first university photographer in 1982 and continued in that role until 1986.
In addition to his work with the Student Publications summer workshops, he has been the photo instructor for the Media Now High School Journalism camp in St. Charles, Missouri, since 2010.
In 2011, Hairlson was recognized for his decades of mentoring students and his commitment to the workshops at WKU with the university’s Summit Award, the highest honor WKU bestows on volunteers. In 2014, he was awarded the Journalism Education Association’s Friend of Scholastic Journalism Award at JEA’s national conference in Washington, D.C.
After his retirement in January, Hairlson and his wife, Shelitta, moved to Bowling Green to be closer to their son Andrew, daughter-in-law Rebecca and their 2-year-old grandbaby, Charlotte.
Hairlson is the fifth winner of the Friend of Student Publications Award, which honors people who are not alumni of WKU Student Publications but who have had an exceptional positive effect on the program and its students.
