Top student journalists in TCU Student Media will receive $2,500 in awards from a Schieffer School of Journalism endowment established to honor former TCU professor, newspaperman, novelist and Texas music raconteur Jay Milner.

The first Jay Milner Awards for Distinguished Student Journalism will be announced at the Student Media awards luncheon May 3 at the Kelly Center on the TCU campus. The awards will constitute recognition for the best editorial leadership, overall reporting and best story from among student journalists who work for the student newspaper, TV broadcast, magazine and news websites.

The awards have been established by the Schieffer School through a donation from Gail Milner, the widow of Jay Milner, and winners will be chosen from among the applicants by journalism faculty and area professionals.

Milner, who died at age 88 in December, was a noted civil rights-era reporter of the 1950s whose coverage with the Delta Democrat Times in Greenville, Miss., was cited in the 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “The Race Beat.” He moved to the editorial page desk of the New York Herald Tribune, and returned to Texas in 1961 following the publication of his novel, “Incident at Ashton,” where he joined a circle of writers and journalists the likes of Larry L. King, Larry McMurtry, and Billy Lee Brammer, as well as Edwin “Bud” Shrake, Dan Jenkins and Gary Cartwright. During that period, Milner taught journalism at TCU. Shrake, Jenkins and Cartwright are members of the Schieffer School’s Hall of Excellence.

Milner’s ties to TCU student journalists were rekindled in 2009 when former Lufkin Daily News publisher Joe Murray initiated the Jay Milner Award for Reporting given monthly to the top student journalist selected by editors of the publications.

Gail Milner said the establishment of the journalism awards for TCU journalism students to honor her husband’s legacy was a natural fit.

“TCU and Jay have made a lot of good impressions on a lot of kids,” she said. “I think Jay would be thrilled and amazed at what we’re doing.”

Ken Bunting '70, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition and former executive editor and associate publisher of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, praised his former teacher.

“Jay taught and mentored and nurtured lots of students during his time on the TCU faculty,” said Bunting, also a member of the journalism school’s Hall of Excellence. “Now, these awards will be a badge of distinction for a new generation of Horned Frog journalists.”

From the circle of great Texas writers coming out of north Texas in the 1960s, Milner turned his attention toward the emerging Austin music scene of the 1970s, where he became friends with Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker and the wave of musicians who found new artistic freedom outside the Nashville scene and founded the short-lived but iconic Texas Music magazine. Those adventures led to his memoir, “Confessions of a Maddog: A Romp through the High-flying Texas Music and Literary Era of the Fifties to the Seventies,” which was published in 1998.

Murray, the Lufkin newspaper’s editor when it won its Pulitzer Prize in 1977, said he established the monthly reporting award to recognize Jay Milner’s accomplishments. “Jay was a famous ‘arthur,’ as some of the Texas bunch called each other… who was mostly unknown to the reading public during much of his life,” Murray said. “He probably was at his best as a college journalism teacher. Jay was my hero.”

Five student-led publications comprise TCU Student Media. They include:

• The TCU Daily Skiff newspaper, founded in 1902, which was named the Best of Show winner among daily newspapers by the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association and third-place best of show in the fall by College Media Advisers (now College Media Association).
• Image magazine, named the best student magazine in 2011 by the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association and the Mark of Excellence winner by the Society of Professional Journalists Region 8 (Texas-Oklahoma).
• TCU News Now, named the second-place MOE winner in TV broadcast and which produces daily webcasts and a weekly newscast;
• The TCU 360 news website, awarded the SPJ Mark of Excellence as best affiliated website in Texas and Oklahoma and which generates news and hosts content for the Skiff, Image and News Now.
• The 109 news website, which covers the 76109 zip code area adjacent to the TCU campus.

This academic year, the publications and student staffers have been recognized with more than 50 awards from College Media Association, Inc. (CMA), College Newspaper Business and Advertising Managers, Inc. (CNBAM), Texas Intercollegiate Press Association (TIPA), the SPJ Region 8, the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association (TIPA) and the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors (TAPME).

For more information, contact Schieffer School of Journalism Director John Lumpkin (J.lumpkin@tcu.edu, 817.257.4908).