Inductees

Martene Windsor “Bill” Corum, born in Speed, Missouri, graduated from the University of Missouri in 1917. Following his service during World War I, he attended the Columbia University School of Journalism while serving as a copyeditor for the New York Times. After graduation, he became assistant sports editor, but later left to work for the New York Evening Journal. during the 1920s, he covered the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Giants, the Kentucky Derby, and later, boxing matches.

Over his 30-plus-year career, he not only enjoyed success as a sports columnist, but also as a television and radio personality, calling Friday Night Fights from Madison Square Garden during the 1930s and 1940s, and eventually hosting the Bill Corum Sports Show on television.

During the 1940s, Corum served as Suffolk Downs’s vice president and later as Churchill Downs’s president before he died in 1958.