Almost all of us have a friend or acquaintance who is an endless fountain of knowledge. There isn’t a day in which that person doesn’t teach us something or share a little insight into something we may not have thought about. Mr. Duane Bonifer, Trinity Class of 1986, is one of those people.

Bonifer spent an hour or so talking with Trinity students in the photo & online journalism class this past spring. He spoke about various subjects, including the use of social media in journalism. His rapid-fire anecdotes entertained and informed the class.

Bonifer, whose brothers Derek and Dennis also graduated from Trinity, started his high school career in the fall of 1982. An advanced-level student, Bonifer took part in cross country, speech and debate and journalism, among other interests. He described his Trinity experience as “busy. I was involved with a lot of activities at Trinity. I would say also that I discovered that real education, real learning, takes place outside of the classroom.”

Bonifer, whose father taught at duPont Manual, attributed his high school success to the learning he did outside the classroom. Bonifer cited three teachers in particular  from his Trinity experience: Mr. Bob Edelen, Mr. Jim Lawler and Mr. Tony Lococo.

Edelen was one of Bonifer’s teachers who showed him the value of learning outside the classroom in a program called Independent Study. This class was for students who were highly motivated and disciplined when it came to learning.

Bonifer said, “One of the great things about the program was you learned a whole lot outside of the classroom. I attended my first opera because of Bob. I discovered my favorite film of all time (‘Once Upon A Time in America’), and I learned about classical music and the arts from Bob.”

Bonifer encountered Lawler in a “zero period” history class Trinity offered in the 1980s, a program where Trinity students could go to Sacred Heart Academy in the morning and take a class there.

Bonifer took US history, and Lawler was his teacher. “We only had class Monday through Thursday, and I used to go down to Sacred Heart anyway on Fridays and talk to Jim. I learned a lot about history and learning.”

During his junior and senior years, Bonifer worked with Trinity’s student newspaper, the ECHO, and the yearbook, the Shamrock. Lococo, who taught those classes, asked Bonifer to be editor in chief of the Shamrock his senior year. Bonifer also wrote extensively for the ECHO.

An excellent writer, Bonifer in the spring of 1986 was named the best high school journalist in the Kentuckiana area.  The Greater Louisville High School Press Association, in conjunction with The Courier-Journal/Louisville Times, sponsored the contest Bonifer won.  Mr. Barry Bingham Jr., publisher of The C-J at the time, presented Bonifer with his award.

Lococo said, “In high school Duane was non-stop energy — bright, articulate and inquisitive — and an incredible leader and writer.  He didn’t choose worn-out topics; he wrote an impressive review, for example, about the opera singer Pavorotti. How many high school students attempt that?”

Bonifer decided to use his scholarship to attend the University of Kentucky and work on the Kentucky Kernel, a daily newspaper located on UK’s campus. He said, “I jokingly say I majored in the Kentucky Kernel and went to class in my spare time.”  

Bonifer’s love for learning only amplified once he got to Kentucky. He said, “It was an incredible experience and incredible environment. I like to joke that I crammed four years into five. One reason I stayed another year was because I was learning so much about the craft of journalism.”

Bonifer served as editor in chief of the Kentucky Kernel. While working for the Kernel, Bonifer was surrounded by talented and gifted journalists. He said, “We were mentored by fantastic journalists in the Lexington market and Louisville market.”

Not only were the journalists around Bonifer great, the stories that were covered were equally impressive, among them higher education in the general assembly in Frankfort, presidential candidates in 1988, and the UK basketball scandal of ’88.

After leaving the University of Kentucky, Bonifer took a job in the public relations office at Lindsey Wilson College, where he worked for 14 months before accepting a position in Trinity High School’s Advancement Office.

After working at his alma mater, Bonifer decided to get back into journalism, this time at a newspaper in Lafayette, Indiana. He said, “I loved putting out a daily newspaper. We were a small daily, but it was a big enough small daily where we could do some interesting things with the Sunday paper.”

After a while, however, Bonifer and the paper ran into some problems. “The company that owned it, I hated working for the company—that was Gannett, which also owns The Courier-Journal. I mean they basically disemboweled The Courier and turned that into a shell of its former self.”

Already dissatisfied with Gannett, Bonifer received a phone call from Lindsey Wilson College asking him to come back and take the reins of their public relations operations, so he took the position.

There, he met a long time friend and co-worker, Mr. Chris Schmidt. Schmidt is now the dean of students at Lindsey Wilson College.

Schmidt said of Bonifer, “He is an incredible encyclopedia of knowledge across every genre. Bonifer believes in a theory that everyone is a lifetime learner. Everyone keeps  learning and acquiring knowledge throughout their lives. Pick a subject area and Duane knows something, someone about it, and if he doesn’t, he goes home and stays up all night long and studies it, and the next day he’s an expert on it.”

Aside from being a wonderful person to be around, Bonifer is also phenomenal at what he does. “He has this incredible talent for wanting to do more. I don’t know where he gets his work ethic from, and I don’t know where he gets the energy behind his work ethic,” said Schmidt.

Over the course of his time at Lindsey Wilson, Bonifer improved the public relations aspect of the school and truly created a brand for Lindsey Wilson. Schmidt said, “He sees the college, he sees individual programs, and he sees sports as a brand. He wants you to be the best; he wants your program to be the best.”

Despite being in public relations, Bonifer still has the journalistic mind that he crafted so well at Trinity and during his time at the Kernel. At dinner, Bonifer always has a small notebook, and during conversation, he takes notes. Schmidt said he takes notes about the conversation and writes questions to ask the person telling the story because he thinks it might be a good idea for a story.

Mr. Mason Dyer, the vice president of Kentucky’s Private College Association, is also a good friend and co-worker of Bonifer. Dyer highlighted Bonifer’s leadership skills: “I convene a group of all the public relations people from the private colleges, and he just takes charge if we need to steer conversation in a certain direction. He has great respect from his peers.”

After 20 years at Lindsey Wilson, Bonifer recently took the position of executive director of communications and marketing at Monmouth College in Illinois.

He said, “Monmouth is a different kind of experience for me, almost exclusively a residential liberal arts college.”

Bonifer said the people he met at Monmouth were important in making the tough decision to leave Lindsey Wilson. He said, “They have a dynamic new president who came from Centre College in Danville. (Monmouth) has a really engaged board, which is really important in higher education. They also have a president that is very dynamic, very innovative, very imaginative and creative in terms of what higher education needs to look like in the future.”

The success Bonifer has had at Trinity, the University of Kentucky, Lindsey Wilson and Monmouth has not happened accidentally. The tremendous passion he has is contagious wherever he is. As Schmidt said, “He wants to help everyone around him be the best professional they can be.”

Check out Mr. Duane Bonifer from his time at Lindsey Wilson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv-A_RRPN_8