Memorial service for Robert D.G. Lewis, former chairman of Club's Board of Governors, to be held 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Club

A memorial service for longtime Washington journalist Robert D.G. Lewis, former chairman of the National Press Club's Board of Governors and a former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, will be held at 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 13 at the Club.

Lewis, 80, died July 10 at the Inova Fairfax Heart and Vascular Institute in Northern Virginia. He was 80 and suffered from pulmonary fibrosis.

As a leader in numerous media organizations, Bob Lewis was an unabashed advocate for open government and freedom of information, even tangling verbally with then-Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., during a hearing where the journalist testified in 1983. Thurmond was advocating a broader exemption for the FBI from Freedom of Information Act.

Awards for defending or advancing press freedom, named for Lewis, are presented annually by both the national Society of Professional Journalists Foundation and the SPJ Foundation of Washington, D.C. He also received SPJ's national Wells Key award in 1980 for his service to the profession of journalism. He served as chairman of the Freedom of Information Committee of SPJ, formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, from 1978 to 1983 and then served successively as secretary-treasurer, president-elect and president of the organization from 1983 to 1986.

Lewis was a Silver Owl member of the National Press Club and served as chairman of its governing board from 1975 to 1977. From 1996 until his deathm he was a member of the Board of Visitors of the Les Aspin Center for Government at Marquette University. He also was a member of the White House Correspondents Association, the Warren E, Berger Society of the National Center for State Courts, the Supreme Court Historical Society, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society and the Cosmos Club.

Lewis also was a founder of WISH LLC, Washington Intern Student Housing.

A native of Chicago, Lewis grew up in Ionia, Mich., where he was an Eagle Scout. He served in the Army during the Korean War and then received a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from Michigan State University in 1955. He began his reporting career at the Galesburg (Ill.) Register-Mail in 1955, rising to city editor. He moved to the Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette in 1960, serving first as a reporter and then as business editor. From 1964 to 1966 he was the state capital correspondent in Lansing for the Booth Newspapers, covering then-Gov. George Romney and the Michigan Legislature. In 1966, Booth moved him to its Washington bureau, where he spent 21 years. From 1987 to 1991 he was a correspondent in the Washington bureau of Newhouse Newspapers. Then, from 1991 until his retirement in 1999, he was senior editor of the AARP Bulletin for the American Association of Retired Persons.

Lewis was married in 1956 to Georgia Demopoulos. They divorced in 1988 and he subsequently married Jacqueline McGregor, who survives him. He is also survived by nine children: Peter Lewis of New Orleans, Sarah Lewis of Philadelphia, Mary Lewis of Easthampton, Mass., John Lewis of Santa Barbara, Calif., Elizabeth Lewis Cole of Easthampton, Mass., Daniel Lewis of Washington, D.C., Susan Lewis Bergin of Maplewood, N.J., Katy McGregor Gaietto of Alexandria, Va., and Sara McGregor of Alexandria. Other family include 17 grandchildren and a sister, Mary Lewis Lindskog of Sarasota, Fla.

In lieu of flowers, donations in the name of Robert D.G. Lewis can be sent to the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation of Washington, Scholarship Foundation, P.O. Box 19555, Washington, D.C. 20036.