Carpenter, Tim

Tim Carpenter has been a Kansas Reflector senior reporter since the nonprofit nonprofit news organization was founded five years ago.

He was raised on a small dairy and beef cattle farm in Missouri by parents who valued access to news and current events. They were subscribers to The Kansas City Star or Times for about half a century and embedded with him the habit of reading the newspaper.

Previously, he spent 15 years each at the Topeka Capital-Journal and the Lawrence Journal-World. He began his roughly 40-year career with United Press International in Topeka. He earned a degree in agricultural journalism from Kansas State University.

Individually or with colleagues, Carpenter won the Kansas Press Association’s Victor Murdock Award six times. The William Allen White Foundation honored him four times with its Burton Marvin News Enterprise Award.

The Kansas City Press Club twice presented him with its Journalist of the Year Award and, more recently, with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

He is married to Jill Hummels, chief of staff to the University of Kansas provost and a former journalist.

They have two adult children, Haley and Tess.