A longtime voice in Lake Country received a national honor last week for distinct writing that has forged a one-of-akind connection with readers.
Syndicated columnist Dick Yarbrough won the prestigious 2026 Carmage Walls Commentary Prize for personal interest columns, beating out writers from major newspapers nationwide.
“It probably means as much to me as anything I’ve done,” Yarbrough said. “When I was in the corporate world I handled public relations, and there’s an award called the Silver Anvil, which is like their Oscar, and I won two of those, and I thought I’ll never beat that. But this beats it.”
Yarbrough is known statewide for his straightshooting, humorous writing on whatever crosses his mind. Yarbrough’s weekly column appears in 55 newspapers across Georgia – including The Eatonton Messenger and Lake Oconee News – making him the most widely-syndicated columnist in the state. His Walls Award win, however, was for his work in the Marietta Daily Journal, where he contributes columns twice weekly.
The Carmage Walls Commentary Prize has been awarded since 2022. It is named for the late Southern Newspapers founder Benjamin Carmage Walls.
Yarbrough, who grew up in East Point, graduated from the University of Georgia in 1959 with a degree in broadcast journalism. He spent five years in radio before working four decades as a self-described “corporate suit,” serving as vice president for BellSouth Corporation until retiring in 1993 there.
That same year, he accepted a position from Billy Payne to become managing director for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. Yarbrough played a pivotal role in bringing the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games to life in Atlanta.
In July 1998, Yarbrough was asked to write a guest column in the Atlanta Business Chronicle about his assessment of how the city handled the Olympics. He accepted, and “unloaded” on what he felt was Atlanta’s poor management of the Games. The column generated a frenzy.
Since then, Yarbrough has written 1,367 syndicated columns and counting.
In the 2000s, Yarbrough was asked by late Marietta Daily Journal publisher Otis Brumby Jr. if he would write an additional column exclusively for the MDJ. They cut a deal for the MDJ to handle the billing for his syndicated column if Yarbrough would write a second column to run only in the MDJ.
Yarbrough has since written 859 MDJ-exclusive columns – and counting.
Yarbrough has eschewed taking one side or the other when he writes about politics, preferring instead to focus primarily on human-interest subjects. He said he averages about 20 to 30 pieces of mail per week from readers and responds to each of them. Yarbrough said he cherishes the relationship he’s forged with readers and gets many column ideas from their feedback.
“I think it’s just because I’m conversational, and I go out of my way to not take myself seriously,” Yarbrough said of his ability to connect. “I like self-deprecation; that kind of lets the readers know, ‘he doesn’t think he’s all that important.’” Yarbrough spends much of his time now looking out for the next generation. He established the C. Richard Yarbrough Professorship in Crisis Communications at his alma mater’s Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication. His own experience navigating the Olympics through the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996 showed him the importance of high-stakes communications, and he donates the proceeds from his syndicated column back to that professorship.
He also established a scholarship and a fellowship at Kennesaw State University in honor of his late wife, Jane, a longtime nurse who passed away in 2020. The Jane J. Yarbrough Nursing Scholarship was created in 2022, and the Jane J. Yarbrough Nursing Faculty Fellowship followed two years later.