LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada Press Association on Saturday inducted three new members into its Hall of Fame — veteran Associated Press sportswriter Tim Dahlberg and longtime Las Vegas Review-Journal journalists Don Ham and Lisa Kim Bach.
Dahlberg became one of only two national sports columnists for the AP in 2001 and was inducted into the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame in 2016.
He started his career at the Sparks Tribune and became a night police reporter at the Review-Journal in 1976. He was among the first on the scene of the 1980 MGM Grand fire that killed 87 people, writing the lead story and covering the aftermath as Nevada legislators were pushed to adopt tough new fire safety standards.
After joining the AP's Las Vegas bureau, he covered Wayne Newton's libel suit against NBC and a Culinary Union strike that paralyzed the Strip. He later helped cover Muhammad Ali's fight with Larry Holmes at Caesars Palace, launching a career covering the biggest sporting events in the world, including 14 Olympics, more than 100 major golf championships, hundreds of championship fights, 10 Super Bowls and six World Series.
His career came full circle when he teamed up with former RJ publisher Sherman Frederick to form Battle Born Media in 2011, which now owns six weekly newspapers in Nevada, including the Sparks Tribune.
Ham joins a distinguished list of Nevada editors who toiled day and night behind the scenes to bring readers breaking news and in-depth coverage of the Legislature, courts, education and other institutions. During a 43-year career in journalism, he was the Nevada Appeal's editor in Carson City for more than a decade before running the Las Vegas Review-Journal's city desk for the next 20 years.
The winner of several Nevada Press Association awards, Ham's attention to detail also made him the newspaper's style guru, helping compile and produce its style guide as the Review-Journal became the first newspaper in the U.S. to publish its guide online.
A Southern California native, he worked as editor of the Lompoc Record, Bonita Publication weeklies in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, a copy and wire editor at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and a reporter in Fairfield, California.
Bach, who died from cancer in 2016, won numerous Nevada Press Association awards during her 27-year journalism career, including the 2007 Community Service award when she led a team covering Clark County's troubled Department of Family Services. Her byline appeared in the RJ more than 2,000 times.
A 1989 graduate of California State University, Fresno, she worked at the Modesto Bee, Clovis Independent, Fresno Bee and News Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Indiana, before joining the Review-Journal as a reporter in 1997.
Born in Korea to an Army father and his Korean wife, Bach grew up on a Kentucky farm.
