Wyant, William K.

William K. Wyant was a nationally known journalist and conservationist. Wyant was born in Greensboro, North Carolina on May 1, 1913 and graduated from Harvard University in 1935. He began his journalistic career with the Savannah (Georgia) "Morning News" in 1937, then moved to the Atlanta "Journal" in 1939. Wyant served in the U.S. Army during World War II, but returned to the Atlanta "Journal" after the war and became its Washington correspondent in 1949. In 1951, Wyant became a reporter for the St. Louis "Post-Dispatch", where he covered national politics and international affairs. He was assigned to the "Post-Dispatch's" Washington bureau in 1964, where he became one of the foremost environmental reporters in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Wyant retired from the "Post-Dispatch" in 1978, but remained active as a conservationist and wrote the book "Westward in Eden: The Public Lands and the Conservation Movement" (1982), which concerned federal lands in the American West.