By Will Wright | Assistant news editorKentucky

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Author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson has been nominated for the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.

A ceremony in The Grand Reserve in Lexington will induct the Louisville native, along with six others, on Tuesday.

Thompson is best-known for his coverage of the 1970 Kentucky Derby, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” as well as other articles and books including “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

“I think the selection of Hunter Thompson is long overdue,” said David Hawpe, former editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal and the man who nominated Thompson for the Hall of Fame. “He’s one of the most influential journalists of the post-World War II era.”

Thompson is credited with popularizing and developing Gonzo journalism, a writing style that presents a story from the writer’s perspective.

“I love the fact that he encouraged us to do experimental journalism,” Hawpe, a UK trustee, said. “I think what Gonzo journalism did was prompt us to stretch, to reach, to do some things that we hadn’t been doing.”

Duane Bonifer, president of the UK Journalism Alumni Association which sponsors the Hall of Fame, said that Thompson’s personality and beliefs differed from the norm in Kentucky, especially in the ’70s, which led to a distance between Thompson and his home state.

“I think Kentucky in general wasn’t embraced by Thompson, so they didn’t turn around and embrace him,” Bonifer said. “Most Kentuckians didn’t relate or couldn’t relate to a lot of things he was writing in the ’70s.”

Host of Morning Edition on WFPL in Louisville, Jonathan Bastian, will accept the award for Thompson, who died in 2005 at the age of 67.

“I think Hunter felt like Louisville had kind of abandoned him, and perhaps it had,” said Ed McClanahan, a Kentucky author who spent some time with Thompson during the ’60s and ’70s. “I think he wasn’t very favorably inclined toward Louisville by the end of his life.”

Thompson visited McClanahan in the mid-’70s at the University of Montana for a speech to an auditorium “absolutely packed with people.”

“Hunter came on stage with his cigarette holder and his big cup of Wild Turkey,” McClanahan said. After a roaring applause, Thompson went up to the microphone and said, “Well, you mother-f*****s invited me up here, what do you want to know?”

The night that followed was “one of the most unhinged nights of my life,” McClanahan said. “It was totally crazy. We went to every bar in town and Hunter just roared through the whole thing. But you know what was amazing? He was a total gentleman. He was a true Kentucky gentleman. No one ever gives him credit for that.”