May 1, 2015
K-State alumnus Tom Milbourn speaks at Journalism and Mass Communications Honors Banquet
Tom Milbourn, news anchor for FOX 11 News at WLUK-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin, was the speaker at the April 24 honors banquet for the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University.
More than 100 students were honored as scholarship recipients at the event. Also honored were students who received awards from the following organizations or honor societies: American Advertising Federation's Alpha Delta Sigma Honor Society, the Associated Collegiate Press, College Newspaper Business and Advertising Managers, the Kansas Association of Broadcasters, Kansas Collegiate Media, the Kansas City Press Club, Kansas Professional Communicators, Phi Beta Kappa, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Silver Telly Council and Sullivan Higdon Sink.
Milbourn is a 1968 business administration graduate of K-State, and he received his master's degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He spoke to more than 100 students who were honored as 2015-2016 scholarship recipients.
Milbourn began his broadcast career at age 15 at KMAN, Manhattan, Kansas, working there for seven years as an announcer and sports director. This was during the period when his father, Max Milbourn, was special assistant to K-State President James McCain. Milbourn related that on his first on-air newscast, he devoted three minutes to a local wedding. After the broadcast, legendary local news veteran Lowell Jack told Milbourn that it went fine, but he needed to "hone his news judgment a bit."
Milbourn's career spans five decades, including being the current press box announcer for the Green Bay Packers as well as a part-time professor of communications at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. He has received numerous state and regional awards and has been a news anchor and news director in Champaign, Illinois; Lansing, Michigan; and Madison, Wisconsin. He has interviewed U.S. presidents, covered national political conventions and Super Bowls, and flown with the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds.
He was honored with the Wisconsin Associated Press Award for outstanding service through a nearly 40-year career in Wisconsin broadcasting. He also received awards for community service from United Cerebral Palsy, Encompass Child Care, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Northeast Wisconsin and Rotary International. Milbourn is a retired lieutenant colonel in the Wisconsin Air National Guard.