Sep 15, 2009Top University News

Frank Batten, Civil Rights Champion & Weather Channel Founder, Has Died

by NPR

TOPICS:

There’s sad news from Norfolk, Va.: Frank Batten Sr., 82, died today [Sept. 10].

One of the news outlets that Batten, a 1950 graduate of the University of Virginia, led, The Virginia-Pilot, summarizes what sounds like a well-lived life:

“He was a son of privilege, the heir to a family fortune, a man whose life, in other hands, might have been measured in dollars and cents.

Instead, Frank Batten forged a legacy not on what he made but what he created.

From errand boy he rose to publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and its afternoon sister, then parlayed his newspapers into an adventuresome media company with global reach. He helped lead the fight for integrated schools in Norfolk, midwifed Old Dominion University into being, commanded The Associated Press and its far-flung correspondents, and defied a legion of doubters to create The Weather Channel.”

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