Shelley, Jack, 1912-

Broadcast journalist John D. "Jack" Shelley was born in Boone, Iowa, on March 8, 1912. He graduated from Boone High School in 1929, and earned a Bachelor of Journalism Degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1935. In 1935, after a short stay with the Iowa Herald in Clinton, Iowa, Shelley went to work for WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa. He was assistant news director for five years, then became news director for both radio and television until he left in 1965. From 1944-1945, Shelley was a war correspondent in Europe and the Pacific covering the Second World War. He was aboard the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay to cover the Allies' acceptance of the unconditional Japanese surrender, and was one of twenty reporters chosen to cover the atomic bomb tests at Yucca Flats, Nevada (1953). In 1965 Shelley joined Iowa State University as an Associate Professor of Journalism. He served as a Professor from 1969 until his retirement in May 1982. Jack Shelley helped found the Iowa Broadcast News Association, an organization that in 1971 honored him by establishing the Jack Shelley Award.