The Indiana Publisher

Page 5 October 2021 Keith Roysdon Special to the The Star Press (Muncie) MUNCIE, Ind. — Ruth Chin, an accomplished Muncie photographer whose work was known throughout Indiana and the nation, has died at age 97. Chin died Oct. 1, according to David Cox, president of the Meeks Mortuary and Crematory in Muncie. Services were held Oct. 12. Accolades for and memories of Chin and her career appeared on local Facebook pages over the weekend. Friends called her "an inspiration" and "a gem." Chin was Indiana's first female Chinese-American photojournalist, according to a story about her published in 2014, when she was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. For decades, Chin operated a Muncie professional photog- raphy studio and was the author of a photography column, "Positives and Negatives," that appeared in The Muncie Star beginning in 1962 and ending in May 1996 with the merger of The Star and The Muncie Evening Press. In that final column, writ- ten before the everyday ease of cameras in smartphones, Chin wrote, "Photography as used today in our everyday lives makes us aware of our universe … Photography records our present-day living for history. … Photography changes and educates us daily, whether we consciously realize it or not." Chin was born in May 1924 in Chicago and came to Muncie with her parents, who owned the Mandarin Inn, a popular and well-remembered restaurant on Jackson Street downtown. The November 1945 obituary for her father, Lloyd Chin, noted the family had moved to Muncie in the mid-1920s. The restaurant had over the decades served well-known guests including Eleanor Roosevelt, singer Nelson Eddy and politicians like Wendell Willkie and Henry Wallace, the latter when he was the 33rd vice president of the United States. Ruth Chin's name and work Ruth Chin, state's first Chinese-American photojournalist, dies at 97 The Nina Mason Pulliam Environmental Journalism Award was created through a grant by the Pulliam Trust to the Hoosier State Press Association Foundation to recognize Indiana journalists for outstanding reporting on environ- mental issues. The award was part of the HSPA Better Newspaper Contest for the first time in 2018. Sara Clifford of the Brown County Democrat received the 2021 award for her reporting on water contamination. Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust $1,000 Environmental Journalism Award Hoosier State Press Association Foundation Hall of Famer was first woman to cover Indiana basketball championships In this photo from 2009, photographer/artist Ruth Chin and then-Director of Career Center and Extended Services Dale Basham unveil Chin's portrait of President Barack Obama at the Muncie Area Career Center. The Star Press photo. See Chin,page 10

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