WATERLOO - A Waterloo native and pioneer as an African-American journalist recently won a prestigious award in Connecticut, where he is now a university official.

Dwight Bachman, public relations officer at Eastern Connecticut State University since 1990, received the university's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Service Award for 2007.

For the past 15 years on its station, WECS-TV, the university has aired "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: A Look Back." Bachman created the 12-part television series while serving as news producer at the Satellite News Channel in 1983.

Bachman is a 1964 graduate at East High School in Waterloo and in the late 1960s was the first African-American journalist to work at KWWL-TV. While at KWWL, he worked alongside Brian Ross, now an investigative reporter for ABC News.

Bachman is a 1970 graduate of the University of Northern Iowa and a member of the UNI Alumni Association board. He also holds a master's degree from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

"Since he arrived at Eastern in 1990, Dwight has worked tirelessly to achieve diversity in all of Eastern's marketing and branding campaigns," said Imna Arroyo, professor of visual arts.

Raouf Mama, professor of English, added more praise.

"Dwight is one of the unsung heroes of our common struggle for the emancipation of our world from the scourge of greed, hatred and violence," Mama said.

Bachman has received numerous professional awards in public relations, journalism and community service. Among them in 2001, Bachman won the Connecticut Library Association's news media award for marketing Eastern University's J. Eugene Smith Library.

While serving as a news producer at WTOP-TV in Washington, D.C., in 1978, he was nominated as Washington Journalist of the Year by the Capitol Press Club. In 1977, he was nominated for a Peabody Award by WTOP Radio for researching, writing and producing a series on the Allan Bakke discrimination case.

Before joining Eastern University, Bachman also worked as a writer, reporter, editor and news producer at radio and television stations in Baltimore and New York City and at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

He served as a black scholar in residence at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque and was the first African-American director of the Commission on Human Rights in Dubuque.

Bachman is the son of Anna Belle Bachman of Waterloo.

Contact Pat Kinney at (319) 291-1484 or pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com.