Charles Nedwin “Ned” Hockman’s career spans 59 years, starting in 1947 as a combat cameraman in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operation. An Oklahoma native, Ned attended Cameron College and the University of Oklahoma before being drafted into the Army in 1942, where he served with the Air Corp’s First Motion Picture Unit. He helped photograph and produce hundreds of training films under the supervision of unit commander Ronald Reagan. In 1949 he became Director of Motion Picture Production at OU, and helped establish film production studies there. He was the official cinematographer for the OU Athletic Department from 1949-1985, and began producing a weekly highlight reel that was distributed nationally to publicize college football in a brand new way. Students, peers and journalism professionals agree that Ned always advocated the basics of journalism: Pictures Tell the Story, and Learn to Write Well. He directed the film “Stark Fear” a New York Times Critic’s Pick in 1963, and was a US delegate to the Cannes Film Festival in 1965. He served as the president of the Oklahoma Motion Picture Hall of Fame for 20 years until 2005.
Ned Hockman is one of the founders of the National Press Photographers Association workshop in Norman, Oklahoma, and for 30 years was its host and co-director (31 years on the faculty). Today the NPPA workshops draw hundreds of television professionals from around the world. Ned is the recipient of the prestigious Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award, and has been inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. He has produced over 200 films and television programs and has received numerous awards and accolades – and still maintains that the best reward is the phrase, “…oh, I see what you mean!” Ned and his wife, Loretta Mae, reside in Norman.