Betty Goshorn Weldon

Publisher, Saddlebred Horse Breeder —

BETTY WELDON GREW UP WITH the smell of printer’s ink all around her with two generations of newspaper publishers behind her. When Weldon was five years old, her father made the move to what would always be her home state, no matter how far away she might be. He brought his wife and only child to Missouri, buying the daily “Jefferson City Tribune.” Today, Weldon is publisher and president of the News Tribune Co.

When World War II decimated the reporter’s ranks at the “News Tribune,” Weldon crowded her four years of college at Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts into three, graduating summa cum laude in political science at the age of 20. For graduation, she asked her father for enough money to buy a show horse.

Weldon ended up being one of the only two reporters on the “News Tribune” staff, and found herself at the age of 22 interviewing celebrities, being one of approximately 150 reporters covering the 1944 Democratic National Convention. In the fall, she attended President Roosevelt’s last press conference. At that press conference, Weldon scooped her competitors with the story that Harry Truman would be Roosevelt’s running mate. “I had an inside track,” she said. “He was from Missouri.”

In 1954, Weldon became the first woman to own a television station when she established KRCG-TV in Jefferson City.

Beyond the news industry, Weldon is also the owner of Callaway Hills Stable, where she has become know as one of the top horse breeders in the county. Her operation is the largest privately owned saddlebred breeding farm in the United States.

Betty Weldon died on April 18, 2007 at the age of 85.