Keven Ann Willey was born in Washington, D.C., during the
Eisenhower administration. Her interest in politics began early. Keven’s mother
used to take her in a bassinet to the Senate gallery and listen to the likes of
Everett Dirksen and Estes Kefauver debate public policy issues. Keven’s father,
who worked for the National Institutes of Health, moved the family to Tucson,
which is where Keven grew up.
Keven studied briefly in Europe and at Colegio Cervantes in
Guadalajara. She spent the bulk of her college career at Northern Arizona
University in Flagstaff, where she was a walk-on varsity volleyball player. She
was graduated magna cum laude in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism
with emphasis in political science and Spanish. She is a 2001 graduate of the
Management Development Program sponsored by the Kellogg Graduate School of
Management and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and
was also named that year a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University.
Keven began her journalism career at The Associated Press in
Phoenix, and later in 1980 joined The Arizona Republic where she covered
everything from school boards to murders. She spent 1987-88 covering the
presidential campaign, traveling extensively with Bruce Babbitt, George Bush,
Michael Dukakis, Richard Gephardt, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson and Jack Kemp. She
covered eight national political conventions and has won many awards for news
writing, column writing and editorial writing. Her work appeared in The New
York Times and she's been featured on PBS, NPR, CNN, C-SPAN and numerous
other television and radio stations nationwide.
Keven became The Republic’s political columnist in
1989, and was named editorial page editor in 1998. Under Keven’s direction The
Republic’s editorial pages twice were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.
Keven became vice president and editorial page editor at The
Dallas Morning News in November 2002. Her department’s ongoing Bridging
Dallas’ North-South Gap won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, an
award recognizing the groundbreaking journalism of editorial writers Tod
Robberson, Colleen McCain Nelson and William McKenzie. In 2011, The News
was named "Opinion Page of the Year" among large-circulation
newspapers by the National Conference of Editorial Writers. In 2008, her
department’s successful four-year campaign to amend the state constitution to
require legislators to publicly record their votes was a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing.
Keven was elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board in 2008.