Richard Hyatt

After a distinguished career in daily journalism spanning four decades at three daily newspapers in Georgia, Richard Hyatt has become a prolific author of non-fiction books.

He was a journalism student at Georgia State University when he first went to work in the sports department of the Atlanta Times in 1964. He later wrote sports at the Atlanta Constitution, and then joined the Columbus Enquirer as sports editor in 1972.

Expanding from sports into news, Hyatt went on to serve the Columbus newspapers as city editor, associate editor, senior writer and was a popular feature columnist. Through the years, he was honored with more than twenty-five state and regional awards for writing and reporting.

In addition to newspapers, he worked in public relations and marketing for the Georgia Tech Athletic Association and the Atlanta Hawks … was host of a daily radio talk show … news director of All On Georgia Muscogee, an online news service … and currently contributes colorful reports and commentaries to WLTZ 38 — the NBC-TV affiliate in Columbus, Ga.

As a free-lance writer, he has written articles for a variety of magazines and publications and is the author of nineteen non-fiction books on topics ranging from politics to sports to music.

His catalogue of books includes readable biographies of diverse personalities such as Jimmy Carter, Zell Miller, Jake Hess, Roger Kaiser, Tom Murphy, Charles Jones and Fred Haskins. His latest book is a biography of Gene Sutherland, whose family founded Sutherland’s Foodservice Inc. It will be published in the fall of 2019.

A native of Atlanta, Hyatt attended Georgia State University and is a communications graduate of Columbus State University.