She is also an Emmy-winning[1][2] host and producer of the WFYI-TV public television series Communities Building Community[3] and Judy O'Bannon's Foreign Exchange[4] as well as several one-time specials,[5][6] and as the chair of O'Bannon Publishing Company,[7] published two weekly newspapers, including the award-winning The Corydon Democrat.

As First Lady, she led initiatives that were an outgrowth from her life-long advocacy and work in community development, historic preservation, education and the arts.

O'Bannon delivered Hoosier Millennium toolboxes to communities and organizations throughout the state, traveling in a motor home wrapped in the initiative's logo, with space around the bottom for individuals to sign their names at each stop.

[14][15] and the Indiana Department of Transportation's Hoosier Roadside Heritage Program featuring wildflowers and native plants along the state's highways.

In line with that, she hosted an annual Reading Day at the Residence,[8] which paired graduates of adult literacy programs with school children from throughout the state.

"[4] O'Bannon has also led development and co-produced several one-time feature programs that have included long-form interviews with notable individuals and perspectives on relevant community issues.

[25] Her work with WFYI-TV as a host and producer includes the September 2017 special Welcome Home: the International State of Indiana and in October 2020 What's So Funny: A Judy O'Bannon Comedy Special, for which she and co-producer Gary Harrison received an Emmy nomination from the NATAS Lower Great Lakes Chapter.

[26][27][28] In December 2023, WFYI-TV premiered The Common Thread with Judy O'Bannon, a seven-part series exploring "what it means to be part of the all-inclusive, interdependent, interconnected web of everyone and everything, everywhere" through conversations with community, political and other leaders across the state of Indiana.

[30] During the time of her leadership, The Corydon Democrat was recognized as a Blue Ribbon weekly newspaper by the Hoosier State Press Association.

[36][37] She endorsed and campaigned for Barack Obama in the general election that year as he went on to win Indiana,[38] the first Democratic presidential candidate to do so since 1964.

But she'd rather kick up her heels - and that is, almost literally, what she continues to do as an elder stateswoman and community activist: traveling the state and the globe, giving speeches, asking questions and figuring out ways to solve global problems with local solutions.

"[47] Acknowledging her more than 50 years of personal work and public advocacy, it was announced on June 23, 2020, that O'Bannon would receive the Indiana Landmarks 2020 Williamson Prize for "outstanding leadership in historic preservation" at its virtual annual meeting on September 12, 2020.