John Reginald “Reg” Murphy passed away peacefully on Saturday, November 9, 2024, surrounded with love, music, and his wife of 32 years, Diana, along with Team Murphy Caregivers Maggie and Lila and his Goldendoodle, Sam.
Murphy
A true Renaissance Man, Reg’s extraordinary life was always guided by curiosity, integrity, engagement, and helping those in need. He remained humble, approachable, and universally kind and gentle even at the pinnacle of his professional success as well as his personal pain.
The son of Mae and John Lee Murphy, a schoolteacher and a store owner, Reg was born in Hoschton, in 1934 and raised in Gainesville. Murphy was a standout on the football, basketball, and baseball teams at Gainesville High. In 1948, he played third base and outfield on the school’s state championship team. He quarterbacked the Red Elephants’ football team the year before future Masters champion Tommy Aaron took over as the program’s signal-caller.
Murphy began his journalism career while an undergraduate student at Mercer University in the 1950s, covering local news, sports, and the state capitol for the Macon Telegraph. He went on to serve as a reporter for, and then editor of, The Atlanta Constitution. During his time in Atlanta, Reg was most proud of his work giving voice to civil rights and the progress of the South during the region’s most challenging decade and opposed the war in Vietnam. His work ethic and his ethical compass were extraordinary. In 1959, he was chosen as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
Murphy later served as editor and publisher of The San Francisco Examiner and publisher and CEO of the Baltimore Sun. In 1996, he joined the board of directors of Omnicom, a global marketing and communications corporation headquartered in New York City, serving for nearly two decades.
In the early 1990s, Murphy joined the senior leadership of the National Geographic Society. He served as the Society’s president and CEO from 1996 through 1998.
Murphy began a life-long love affair with the game of golf to provide himself therapeutic release in the aftermath of a much-publicized and terrifying kidnapping during his time at the Atlanta Constitution. He became an active and engaged volunteer with the sport’s governing body, the United States Golf Association, serving as the 54th president during 1994 and 1995. During his two one-year terms, Murphy helped usher in a 20-year championship broadcast rights agreement with NBC.
Prior to his presidency, Murphy chaired the USGA’s Championship Committee in 1993. At the time of his passing, Murphy was a member of eight of the world’s oldest and most prestigious golf clubs: the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers (Muirfield); the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews; San Francisco Golf Club; Peachtree Golf Club; Capital City Golf Club; Ocean Forest Golf Club; Sea Island Golf Club; and Frederica Golf Club. In 2015, Reg was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
During his professional career, he represented his communities through the Board of Visitors, College of Journalism, University of Maryland; Board of Trustees and chair, The Johns Hopkins Hospital; Board of Trustees, San Francisco State University; Board of Trustees, California Institute of Technology; and the Baltimore Literacy Foundation.
For more than a decade, he worked with students and faculty at the College of Coastal Georgia, leading the Athletics Futures Committee and serving as executive-in-residence in the School of Business and Public Management. He was honored by the College as its Volunteer of the Year in both 2011 and 2014. In 2015, the College dedicated the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies.
Murphy remained a loyal alumnus and supporter of Mercer, describing the University as “a place where I learned something about the who, what, where, why, and how of journalism.” He served five terms on the Mercer Board of Trustees. He was also the Distinguished Alumnus Award recipient in 1971 and awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1975. To honor his exemplary service and standards, in 2023, Mercer named its journalism program the Reg Murphy Center for Collaborative Journalism. Earlier this year, to salute his distinguished service, the Omnicom Reg Murphy Scholarship in Journalism was established at Mercer to provide substantive support for ten students annually for the next decade.
In his retirement, he remained an active and generous volunteer, serving on Mercer’s National Journalism Advisory Board and the boards of the Coastal Georgia Historical Society and Communities of Coastal Georgia Foundation.
Murphy published two respected books; his first, The Southern Strategy, was written with his colleague, Hal Gulliver, in 1971. In 1999, he wrote the biography of his friend and fellow Mercer University alumnus, former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell, entitled Uncommon Sense: The Achievement of Griffin Bell.
Survivors include his wife of nearly 32 years, Diana Mather Murphy; a sister, Barbara McConnell of Gainesville; two daughters, Karen Cornwell and Susan Murphy; and two grandsons.
A memorial service will be held Tuesday, November 19, 2024, at 1 p.m. at St. Simons Presbyterian Church followed by a celebration of Reg Murphy’s extraordinary life at Ocean Forest on Sea Island. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Second Harvest Food Bank of Brunswick, Toys for Tots Brunswick, Marine Corp Reserves and the College of Coastal Georgia Athletics Program.
Follow Us