(Sugar Land, TX) – Pampa native and former KPDN/KSN Radio News Director Melanie Miller has been voted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame (TRHOF). Miller is one of only 20 Texas broadcasters—out of more than 200 nominees—to be inducted into the Hall of Fame on November 2, 2024. The special induction ceremony will be held at the Texas Museum of Broadcasting and Communications in Kilgore, Texas, followed by an award reception at the Kilgore History & Arts Center (details available at www.trhof.net ).
“To say I am honored by this recognition is an understatement,” said Miller. “I loved my jobs as a reporter, editor, producer, and news director at eight radio stations across Texas. But it wasn’t work to me—it was truly a blessing to work across the Lone Star State, starting in my Pampa hometown.”
Miller’s legendary news career stands out for multiple trailblazing reasons. She broke the “glass ceiling” as the first female news director at more than half of the stations where she worked. During her Houston years (1984–1991), Miller led the station to historic high ratings, including recognition as the highest-rated all-News radio station in the nation (Spring 1987, Arbitron ratings).
Both she and her news staffs won more news awards than all other radio stations in every market where she worked. Miller is also the only radio news person to have served on the boards of directors of all three radio news trade associations.
She began her radio news career interning at KUT-FM in 1979/1980 while attending the University of Texas in Austin. She parlayed that reporting/anchoring experience into the News Director position at KPDN-AM (later KSZN-AM) in Pampa in 1980. A “one-woman band,” Miller anchored 12 daily newscasts, hosted “Staff Breakfast,” a morning talk show, covered breaking news, and produced series and documentaries.
The Texas Associated Press Broadcasters (TAPB) awarded her “Best Documentary,” the station’s first news award in 20 years. She also worked as a “stringer,” reporting on Pampa-area news for Amarillo radio stations, KIXZ-AM and KGNC-AM, and Amarillo television station, KAMR-TV, plus the Texas State Network and the Texas Associated Press.
Miller joined KWAZ-AM in Lubbock as a general assignment reporter in 1983. Four months later, she was promoted to News Director amid a format and call letter change to KTLK-AM, the first news/talk station in the South Plains/West Texas. She anchored newscasts and produced news series then added programming and promotions, supervising a five-person team. She linked network series with local experts on the station’s talk shows and liaised daily with CNN Radio and ABC Talk Radio. TAPB awarded her spot news and documentary awards, firsts for the Lubbock station.
In 1984, Miller moved to 50,000-watt powerhouse, KTRH-AM, in Houston as a part-time weekend Desk Assistant. Two years later as full-time Morning Editor, she was “on the desk” when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. (When NASA returned to space three years later, she would switch roles to report the launch live from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.)
Less than four years after starting part-time at KTRH, Miller was promoted to News Director of the state’s largest radio news team. With its 32-person staff, seven outside news bureaus, and a multi-million-dollar budget, KTRH had one of America’s largest radio news departments. Miller’s promotion, along with other new department heads, came with a mandate: “awaken this sleeping giant.” Miller systematically overhauled the entire newsroom, laying a new foundation by rebuilding long-forgotten fundamentals while creating a unique “work the story—live and on-air” concept to speed up story coverage. The result? Up to 300 news and feature stories every day.
Results paid off with higher ratings. In Spring 1987, KTRH tied for #1 in national NewsRadio format ratings, pulling a 6.8 AQH (Average Quarter Hour) for listeners 12-plus. Arbitron’s Winter 1988 book delivered KTRH’s best ratings in five years: #1 with a 5.4 share, Mon-Sun 6a-12M, #1 in Morning Drive with an 8.2 AQH and #1 in Mid-day.
KTRH, under Miller’s leadership, set the daily news agenda for the nation’s fourth largest city. She also developed and directed coverage of major stories: two wars (Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm), the G7 Economic Summit hosted by President George H.W. Bush in Houston, every election night (local, county, state, national), 28 Space Shuttle missions (covered by KTRH’s bureau at the Johnson Space Center – the only Houston radio station maintaining such a bureau through the early ‘90s), and more hurricanes/fires/explosions/accidents than she can remember.
As a 50,000-watt powerhouse, KTRH served as Southeast Texas’ Primary AM station for the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS). Miller reactivated the Houston-Area EBS Committee, expanding membership to every city/county Emergency Management Coordinator across the 18-county region. Using a dedicated two-way radio system, KTRH’s newsroom linked directly to these emergency response agencies.
She served two terms as Radio President of the Texas Associated Press Broadcasters (TAPB), and also on the boards of both the UPI Broadcasters Association of Texas (UPIBAT) and the national Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA). Her continuing education seminars for these organizations attracted 100+ attendees.
In 1991, Miller became President of Media Consultants, a Sugar Land-based crisis communications company. She and her husband, Chuck Wolf, former news director of Houston’s KIKK Radio, focused their media training seminars on a unique concept: tell the truth—and fast—even if it’s bad. Before selling the firm in 2018, they trained more than 8,000 spokespersons at 200+ corporations and government agencies worldwide.
Their most significant client projects included helping Harris County manage global media during its Hurricane Katrina Evacuee Response in 2005. More than 600 reporters from 13 foreign countries deployed to Houston to interview the quarter-million evacuees who moved through Houston in 21 days. In 2010, Miller and Wolf co-managed external communications during the BP-Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (world’s largest marine oil spill.
Today Miller writes both fiction and non-fiction stories, publishing under the nom de plume, Melanie Ormand. Her publishing credits include a memoir, her debut novel (nearing completion!), and multiple articles and essays in story collections, magazines, and newspapers.
Her website is www.melanieormand.com where you can read and listen to her stories, including those featured on KUHF-FM and the Moth Radio Hour. She’s lived in Sugar Land, a Houston suburb, since 1992.
