In more than three decades in broadcast journalism, the 1964 UM grad has worked with Walter Cronkite, survived a pink slip when his bosses decided he wasn’t "star quality," and created an award-winning TV news show that celebrates its 20^th anniversary this year.

Clearly, Don Kinney can go the distance.

For service to his profession and to the University, Kinney was one of nine UM grads recognized with the Distinguished Alumni Award during Homecoming ’99 in October. He became the 40^th School of Journalism graduate so honored since 1960.

Kinney is considered a state treasure in Colorado, where he has worked since 1969 in both commercial and public television. His long-running and popular news show, "State of Colorado," is a thought-provoking and insightful look at contemporary issues.

"He has not gone the way of popular sound-bite broadcast journalism," wrote one Coloradan in a letter supporting Kinney’s nomination for UM’s Distinguished Alumni Award. "His name has become synonymous with integrity in broadcast journalism in our state."

Kinney started the program on Denver’s public television station in January 1979. Almost two years earlier, he had lost his job as a reporter at one of the city’s commercial TV stations after consultants suggested he be dumped as "too old and not of star quality."

"State of Colorado, " which he produces and anchors, brings together news makers and reporters to discuss local, state and national issues.

Kinney, who started his own production company in 1986 to produce "State of Colorado" as well as television documentaries, has won regional EMMY Awards, a Silver Circle Award last year from the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences, and a bronze award at the New York Film Festival for a documentary.

A Missoula native, Kinney showed early promise. He got a job at his high school radio station and then worked for Missoula station KGVO as a UM journalism student.

Within a year of his graduation in 1964 — with degrees in both sociology and journalism — he was working for CBS in New York, rubbing shoulders with Walter Cronkite and Charles Kurault.

"It was the thrill of a lifetime to be inside CBS," Kinney told an interviewer from The Denver Post in 1998.

He stayed with CBS until 1969, helping produce news stories on the nation’s fledgling space program before moving his young family to Denver.

Kinney took up running in 1984, and has twice put his second passion in service to the first. In the early 1990s, while he was president of the Denver Press Club, Kinney ran across Colorado to raise $5,500 for a club scholarship fund.

In 1993, Kinney decided to run across Montana, his home state, to raise money for a UM journalism scholarship that would honor his two mentors at KGVO: Don Weston and Ron Richards. That run, which spanned 666 miles and took him 15 1/2 days, raised more than $11,000 to endow the new scholarship fund. As of June 30, 1999, the Weston-Richards Scholarship Fund had an endowment of $32,908.

In 1994, Kinney’s wife, Ann, created a new scholarship in honor of her husband. The Donald W. Kinney Scholarship Fund, started with $10,000, has grown to an endowed fund of $22,050.

Earlier this year, Kinney wrote to development officers at the University with a modest request. He wanted his first name and initial removed from the name of the fund. And he sent along a gift to give that fund — now called simply the Kinney Scholarship Fund — "a little boost," as he called it: a check for $5,000.

Letters supporting Kinney’s nomination praise him as a man of integrity who has done much to further his profession.

"You, as a University," said one letter writer, "should ‘pat yourselves on the back’ for turning out such a fine individual."

Kinney joins 39 other UM School of Journalism grads who have received either Distinguished Alumni Awards or Young Alumni Awards since 1960.

"The School of Journalism has certainly been well represented," said Linda Jesse, alumni award coordinator for UM’s alumni office.

Each year, the University recognizes between three and nine alumni who have distinguished themselves in their chosen careers. In some years, three of those awards have gone to alumni from the UM School of Journalism.

"That’s pretty fabulous," Jesse said.

Three alumni of the journalism school have been elected to the UM Foundation Board of Trustees.