Director of LSU Student Media and Manship School of Mass Communication instructor Steve Buttry died Sunday of pancreatic cancer. He was 62. The news was released via a final blog post that Buttry wrote himself.
Buttry served as a University staff member after a 45-year career in journalism. His resume includes earlier jobs at The Shenandoah Sentinel, The Des Moines Register, The Des Moines Tribune, The Minot Daily News and the Omaha World-Herald. Buttry was a reporter and editor before moving to teaching and newsroom training later in his career, he said in the post. He became known as a digital journalism advocate while leading newsrooms transitioning to a digital-first media model.
Buttry was first diagnosed with cancer in 1999, and then again in 2014. He was diagnosed for the third time in 2016, this time with pancreatic cancer that was unrelated to the previous two cases.
Buttry came to the Manship School in 2014 as the Lamar Family Visiting Scholar. He accepted the position as Student Media director in 2015, according to Buttry’s post. He also taught media writing and advanced print news gathering at the Manship School.
As Student Media director, Buttry worked closely with student leaders from The Daily Reveille, Tiger TV, LEGACY Magazine, the Gumbo Yearbook and KLSU. Buttry served as an adviser to Student Media leaders and offered guidance to individual students.
Buttry included in his blog post that he received three major awards while on staff at the University: the Glamann Award from the American Copy Editors Society in 2015, the Rich Jaroslovsky Founder Award from the Online News Association in 2016 and the Chairman’s Citation from the National Press Foundation in 2017.
Buttry’s memorial will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Details for the service are still pending, the post said. The family requests that memorial tributes are made to the Stephen Buttry Scholarship Fund, which was created in Buttry’s honor by his friends and family through the Manship School.
Buttry is survived by his wife, Mimi, his three sons and daughters-in-law and two granddaughters.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this obituary referred to the Omaha World-Herald as the Omaha World Register. It is the Omaha World-Herald, not the Omaha World Register.