Editor’s note: Senior Communications Officer and Secretary Larry Meyer details how Nancy Hicks Maynard was related to Knight Foundation’s Journalism program and the Maynard Institute.

Nancy Hicks Maynard ‘ a significant pioneer in journalism ‘ was a long-time member of Knight Foundation’s Journalism Advisory Committee. Along with John Dotson Jr. ‘ quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle obituary ‘ Maynard did much to ensure that our journalism grantees valued diversity.

Nancy and her husband Robert Maynard owned and co-published the Oakland Tribune starting in 1983. They practiced the diversity in staffing and coverage they had been preaching earlier in their careers. The paper remains the only major metropolitan daily to have ever been black-owned.

Knight’s Eric Newton was the last managing editor under the Maynards. He recalled that Nancy Maynard successfully reoriented the circulation and advertising departments to focus on Oakland and Berkeley. As a result, circulation was growing in those urban areas even as financial problems forced a sale.

The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, now based in Oakland, has prepared thousands of graduates to enter the nation’s newsrooms, including at the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Nancy Maynard was the institute’s first president and served on its board until 2002.

What are your memories of her?