Grad Returns as Commencement Speaker

Ceremonies will be held Saturday, Dec. 19 in the Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum at 10 a.m. for the Colleges of Education and Applied Science and Criminal Justice and 2 p.m. for the Colleges of Business Administration and Arts and Sciences.

Tinsley is a native East Texan (from Angelina County) who became a journalist when he wrote his first bylined sports story on a Royal typewriter at the age of 15.

He graduated from SHSU in 1958 and was presented the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1984.

He has been on the staff of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for almost 37 years, 10 of them as executive editor during which the newspaper won two Pulitzer Prizes (1981 and 1985). He is now vice president for community affairs.

As a reporter, he was a key staff writer in the Star-Telegram's coverage of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November, 1963, and he has won many writing awards, including a National Education Writers' first place for a lengthy 1965 series titled "Academic Freedom in Texas."

He is a past president of the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association, and of Fort Worth's Society of Professional Journalists. He is also past president of Fort Worth's Parenting Guidance Center and of the Fort Worth Rotary Club. He is currently board chairman of the Cowtown Marathon & 10K Race, which annually draws 15,000 runners to Fort Worth.

He is past chair of the Sam Houston State University Journalism Advisory Council and is currently on the Journalism Advisory Council and the College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Board of the University of North Texas.

He has been inducted into the journalism hall of honor at North Texas, and has established a major endowed scholarship for journalism, the Jack B. Tinsley/Fort Worth Star-Telegram Scholarship for students from East Texas planning a career in consumer journalism.

In 1996 he was honored by the University of North Texas "for years of generous support and outstanding service."

Tinsley's wife of 33 years, Anne Miller, is a writer and former president of the Fort Worth Society of Professional Journalists. His daughter, Anna, is a reporter in the Austin Bureau of Scripps-Howard, and his son, Ben, is a reporter with the Plano Star Courier.

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Media Contact: Frank Krystyniak
Dec. 9, 1998
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