Wayne Sellers, editor and publisher of The Palestine Herald-Press and fixture in Texas professional circles, has been named the 1985-86 College of Communication Outstanding Alumni.

Sellers earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University) before pursuing a graduate degree in journalism at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a member of the Texas Tech University Mass Communications Hall of Fame.

Sellers is former director of the Texas Press Association, past president of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association and former director of the Texas Election Bureau. He has also been a member of the Board of Managers of the Texas State Railroad and a delegate from Anderson County to the Texas Democratic Convention.

Sellers is also a civic leader, having served as president of the Palestine United Fund, president of Palestine Dogwood Trails, director of the Palestine Chamber of Commerce and president of the Palestine Rotary Club (and a Paul Harris Fellow). He has also been a member of the Board of the United Methodist Church, serving as chairman for three years, as well as a member of the Board of Trustees of Palestine Public Library for 24 years. Sellers has received honors over the years including the Texas Library Association’s award for outstanding contribution to Texas libraries and the Palestine Chamber of Commerce Builder of Palestine Award.

Sellers has also served as chairman of the Newspaperboy Committee of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, as a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, as a member of the Public Relations Advisory Committee of the American Radio Relay League, a national organization of amateur radio operators, and as a judge for the Journalists in Space Project.

Tex Schramm, sports legend, has been named the 1999-2000 College of Communication Outstanding Alumnus.

Schramm graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from The University of Texas at Austin. He worked as a sports writer for The Austin American-Statesman while enrolled at the university.

Schramm would eventually move to Los Angeles to handle public relations for the Los Angeles Rams professional football team and eventually became their general manager. He hired a promising young man to head his PR department; Pete Rozelle would go on to become commissioner of the National Football League and build the NFL into one of the most successful sports leagues in the world. After leaving the Rams Schramm became assistant director of sports for CBS. He originated the idea of using a sports anchorman for major athletic events on television and it was at Schramm’s insistence that the Winter Olympics were telecast for the first time; Schramm selected Walter Cronkite as the official announcer for that telecast.

Schramm, however, longed to return to football and eventually became president and general manager of a new NFL franchise – the Dallas Cowboys. He hired legendary coaches Gil Brandt and Tom Landry, becoming the only man in history who, for two different teams, hired head coaches ranked among the top-10 all-time winners. Schramm is also credited as co-architect (with Lamar Hunt) of the 1966 NFL-AFL merger, father of football’s instant replay and builder of the NFL’s first bona fide scouting system. He is also the only NFL executive elected to the Professional Football Hall of Fame who never coached or owned a team.

Recipient of the 1998 Pete Rozelle Award, Schramm, now retired, is well known in the sports fishing world for his competitive tag and release search for deep sea marlin.