The Dunnavant family’s influence on media and sports in Limestone County spans nearly a century. 

Homer “Pappy” Dunnavant and his son Bob Dunnavant, Sr., founded the radio station WJMW in 1948, which became WVNN. They later added WJOF-FM, which became WZYP. 

Dunnavant-owned radio stations covered live sporting events at Limestone County schools and Athens College for decades.

Passion for the media and sports was handed down from Bob Sr. to his six sons. The youngest, Keith, became an acclaimed author and filmmaker. He has written books about some of the most iconic figures in sports, including Paul “Bear” Bryant, Bart Starr and Joe Montana. He has directed several documentaries as well, including the recent ESPN Film “Bart Starr,” and is frequently seen as a featured historian on ESPN and other networks.

Keith Dunnavant has earned many awards during his remarkable media career and the latest is his induction into the Limestone County Sports Hall of Fame on June 14.

“I am so humbled to receive this honor,” said Dunnavant. “I have been gone from Limestone County for over 40 years, but it will always be my home.”

Growing up in Athens, Dunnavant was no different than other kids who loved sports.

“I played baseball at the Fifth Avenue ball fields. I just couldn’t play it as well as some of my friends,” he quipped.

Undeterred by his lack of playing success, Dunnavant used his passion for sports to embark on a career that didn’t involve hitting a baseball or throwing a football. He soon found that writing about sporting events was his calling and his family played a huge part in his career choice.

“Dad was a huge influence on me in many ways, obviously as a broadcaster, because I spent so much time with him at the radio station and elsewhere, but also more generally as a creative thinker,” he said.

Three of his brothers worked in the media as well and this influenced his development.

“Growing up in a house full of adults, with five much older brothers, shaped me pretty profoundly. I was always in a great big hurry to grow up and took important lessons from all my brothers. They have all been very supportive of my media career through the years,” he said.

A 1983 graduate of Athens High School, Dunnavant was named Alabama’s Student Journalist of the Year. As a senior at the University of Alabama, Dunnavant won the prestigious William Randolph Hearst National Writing Award, college journalism’s highest honor.

Dunnavant started his media career in the late 1970s by marketing his own local publications and working as a sportswriter for newspapers in Athens, Decatur and Huntsville. Before moving into magazine management and ownership and books, he enjoyed a distinguished career in sports writing. It took him slightly more than a decade to work his way up from the 14-year-old sports editor of Athens’ weekly, The Journal, to one of the most prestigious jobs in sports journalism — covering national college football and other major sports for The National, a New York-based, all-sports newspaper. Along the way, while working for newspapers in Birmingham, Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles, he also wrote extensively about Major League Baseball, the National Football League, college basketball and sports business.

Dunnavant says that to be inducted into the Limestone County Sports Hall of Fame alongside his dad (a 2006 LCSHOF inductee) and sports figures he looked up to as a kid, is a great honor.

“As a young person growing up, the folks in Limestone County helped nurture me and supported my early journalistic career,” he said. “It is nice to be remembered alongside many previous inductees who are truly local legends — people like Larry McCoy, Oba Belcher, Andy Nelson and Lynn Holladay.”