Lillard Hill

Hill was born on July 29, 1922, in Ada, Oklahoma to Lillard Lee Hill Sr., a building contractor, and Elizabeth Sue Owen Hill, a schoolteacher. As a boy, Hill contracted polio at age 8 and first used a cane and later a wheelchair to assist with his mobility.

Hill attended Horace Mann High School at East Central State College in Ada, Oklahoma, where he participated in marching band along with his brother James Douglas Hill and sister Virginia Sue Hill.{{cite news |title=Horace Mann Band |publisher=Ada Oklahoma Evening News |date=March 6, 1940 |page=7}} Lillard Hill graduated from Horace Mann High School in 1940.{{cite news |title=Highschool Graduates |publisher=Ada Oklahoma Weekly News |date=May 5, 1940}}

Hill attended East Central State College where he excelled in debate, winning first place in radio and poetry competitions in 1943.{{cite news |title=College Debaters Win New Honors |publisher=Ada Oklahoma Evening News |date=April 1, 1943}}

Hill attended Texas Christian University where he met Betty Sue Stringer. They married in 1946.

Hill began his broadcasting career at KADA (AM), a radio station in Ada, Oklahoma serving as chief announcer and program director in the early 1940s.{{cite news |title=Lillard Hill At Northwestern U. |publisher=Ada Oklahoma Weekly News |date=June 24, 1943}}

While working at KADA in 1943, Hill was one of only one hundred people chosen from one thousand applicants to attend a summer session at Northwestern University for special training in radio broadcasting. KADA gave Hill a leave of absence to attend this training.

In 1943, WBAP (AM), a radio station in Fort Worth, Texas founded and owned by Amon G. Carter, founding publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, hired Hill who joined the on-air staff broadcasting news from a downtown Fort Worth hotel.

In the summer of 1948, Hill was chosen to join the staff at the newly created WBAP-TV, also owned by Carter, the first television station in the state of Texas.{{cite book |last1=Schroeder |first1=Richard |title=Texas Signs On: The Early Days of Radio and Television |date=1998 |publisher=Texas A&M University Press |location=College Station, Texas |isbn=0-89096-813-6 |page=141 |edition=1st |url=https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/History/Texas-Signs-On-Schroeder-1998-22-04-27.pdf |access-date=8 October 2023}}

When WBAP-TV went on the air in the fall of 1948, Hill became the first Texas television news anchor. On the evening of WBAP-TV's first public broadcast, September 29, 1948, at around 8pm Hill sat at a table wearing a newly-purchased blue shirt. Light blue was the chosen color after rehearsals revealed white shirts appeared gray but light blue appeared white on the black and white broadcast. Hill delivered the first local newscast by reading from a script for five minutes while the camera remained focused on him. Following Hill's newscast, a movie played. Then Hill returned to the screen for the first broadcast of "The Texas News", a WBAP-TV produced newsreel that would become a popular nightly feature with Hill as the original voice.{{R|TexasSignsOn|p=152-153}}

Hill was chosen for his prominent role due in part to his "great speaking voice".

Hill was a pioneer in creating remote television interviews and feature stories at a time when recording equipment was bulky and difficult to transport. His content would appear on WBAP-TV as popular newsreel broadcasts.

In a 1953 study of adult radio and television listening habits in Texas, Hill was among the highest ranked local newscasters.{{cite web |last1=Whan |first1=Forest |title=The North Texas Radio-Television Audience of 1953 |url=https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Ratings/The-North-Texas-Radio-Television-Audience-1953.pdf |website=worldradiohistory.com |publisher=A. H. Belo Corporation |access-date=4 October 2023}}

Hill appeared in the first color television broadcast in Texas. On Saturday, May 15, 1954, WBAP-TV assembled over three hundred local civic leaders, advertising managers, and out-of-town media executives including NBC president Pat Weaver, NBC executive vice-president Robert W. Sarnoff, and NBC vice-president Harry Bannister, for an event called "Color Day" to unveil color television in Texas. This first color broadcast extended over three hours and included familiar WBAP-TV personalities, singers, dancers, a twelve-piece orchestra, and newsman Lillard Hill.{{R|TexasSignsOn|p=202-208}}

In 1954, Hill moved to Washington DC with his family to become a correspondent with Voice of America. He and his family would later spend time stationed with Voice of America living in New Delhi, India, where Hill served as India bureau chief, Burma, Nigeria, Vietnam, and Malawi.

While stationed in Burma, Hill led the in-country Voice of America team as Director of the Burma Desk during the time Burmese diplomat U Thant served as United Nations secretary general. Hill also served for two years as World Wide English Editor for Voice of America.{{cite web |title=Souvenir Program of the Twelfth Burma-Bucknell Week-End, February 26, 27, and 28, 1960, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania |url=https://files.bucknell.edu/Documents/ISR/SpecialCollections/Burma_Bucknell_Weekend_1960.pdf |website=bucknell.edu |access-date=4 October 2023}}

Hill and his wife were among the founders of the first Unitarian Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Hill retired from the U.S. Foreign Service with the rank of ambassador.

Hill died at his Fort Worth, Texas home in 2009, at the age of 87, after suffering from post-polio syndrome.

{{Reflist}}

• [https://texashistory.unt.edu/search/?q5=%22Hill%2C%20Lillard%22 Lillard Hill at The University of North Texas Portal To Texas History]
• Hill appears at the 2:12 mark in [https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1388977/m1/ a video] documenting the 25th anniversary of The Texas News.

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Category:1922 births

Category:2009 deaths

Category:20th-century American journalists

Category:American male journalists

Category:American television news anchors

Category:American television reporters and correspondents

Category:Polio survivors

Category:People from Ada, Oklahoma

Category:Northwestern University alumni

Category:Texas Christian University alumni

Category:East Central University alumni