Info/Announcements: FRANK AND SUE MAYBORN
Frank W. Mayborn was the owner and publisher of the Temple Daily Telegram, Killeen Daily Herald and KCEN-TV until his death in 1987, when his wife Sue Mayborn kept the presses and cameras rolling. Since his death, Sue has also continued to promote journalistic excellence throughout Texas, including at UNT. In 1999, the journalism graduate program was named the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism thanks to a generous gift from the Frank W. & Sue Mayborn Foundation Advise and Consult Fund at Communities Foundation of Texas Inc. As a result of this support, many graduate students have been awarded scholarships each year to attend the graduate institute. The money is given to the Mayborn Scholars in the hopes that they will give back to the community through the journalism profession in the way that Frank did.
The institute hosts the annual Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. The conference is one of the few growing writing conferences in the country and makes awards to journalists and others for research-based essays, personal essays and nonfiction book proposals.
Frank, with his brothers and father, bought the Telegram in 1929. At the time, the newspaper’s mission was “to make the Telegram the best newspaper ever published in a city of fewer than 20,000 people.” As the newspaper’s business manager, Frank added to the mission statement by promising “to operate a politically independent newspaper, placing the public welfare above the interest of any party.”
Today, the Temple Daily Telegram serves a city of more than 55,000 residents and is available to a regional audience of 375,000. The paper has a daily circulation of 22,000 and a Sunday circulation of more than 25,000.
The Killeen Daily Herald serves a city of more than 86,000 residents. The paper has a daily circulation of 20,000 and a Sunday circulation of 26,000. The newspaper also produces the free weekly, the Fort Hood Herald, which serves the largest U.S. Army post in the United States.