Larry Melvin Speakes (September 13, 1939 – January 10, 2014) was an American journalist and spokesperson who acted as White House Press Secretary under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987. He assumed the role after Press Secretary James Brady was shot on March 30, 1981. Speakes was a native of northwest Mississippi and attended the University of Mississippi. He worked as a journalist in the 1960s until he became press secretary for Democratic Senator James Eastland in 1968. In this position he also worked as the spokesman for the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In 1974, he became a Staff Assistant for President Richard Nixon and soon became the Press Secretary to the Special Counsel to the President at the height of the Watergate scandal. Upon Nixon's resignation, President Gerald Ford appointed Speakes to be Assistant Press Secretary to the President. Speakes served as Bob Dole's press secretary during his unsuccessful vice-presidential run with Ford. He worked for the international public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton until joining the Reagan administration. Early life Speakes was born in Cleveland in northwestern Mississippi, which had the nearest hospital to his parents' middle-class home in Merigold in Bolivar County. His father, Harry Earl Speakes, was a banker. His mother was the former Ethlyn Frances Fincher. Early career Mississippi newspaperman Speakes received a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from the University of Mississippi in Oxford. He served as editor of the Oxford Eagle''' in 1961, and thereafter as managing editor of the Bolivar Commercial in Cleveland from 1962 to 1966. From 1966 to 1968, he worked as general manager and editor of Progress Publishers of Leland, Mississippi. Senate press secretary Speakes headed to Washington, D.C. in 1968, serving as press secretary to Democratic Senator James Eastland of Mississippi. In this capacity, he worked as spokesman for the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary and a coordinator of the senator's reelection campaign in 1972 against the Republican Gil Carmichael.Melissa Smith (July 11, 2017) Larry M. Speakes Mississippi Humanities Council. Retrieved November 23, 2019 Work in the White House The White House tapped Speakes in 1974 as a Staff Assistant and soon became the Press Secretary to the Special Counsel to the President at the height of the Watergate scandal. Upon Nixon's resignation, President Ford appointed Speakes to be Assistant Press Secretary to the President. Speakes served as Bob Dole's