Bowling Green, Ky. - As Western Kentucky University prepares to celebrate its Centennial, the Hall of Distinguished Alumni class of 2005 has a definite touch of past, present and future.

This year's three inductees are Neil Budde, an innovator in the online news publishing business; Lee Robertson, one of Western's greatest ambassadors who gave the Alumni program a national focus; and Col. Ed Stansbury, who has maintained his ties to Western for about 80 years.

The members of the 14th class of noted alumni will be inducted during a Homecoming week luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Oct. 14 at the Sloan Convention Center. The theme of Homecoming 2005 is "Celebrate Traditions, Build Memories." For ticket information, contact the WKU Alumni Association at 1-888-WKU-ALUM.

Neil F. Budde

In the past decade, Neil Budde has been at the forefront of changes in the high-tech online publishing industry, but his journalism career had a rather low-tech start.

Budde was born in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst, Ill., but his family moved to the Cleveland area where he launched his first paper -- a hand-written newspaper distributed to neighbors.

When Budde was a ninth-grader, the family moved to Elizabethtown, Ky., which he still considers his hometown and where he got his first real newspaper job at the then-twice-weekly Hardin County Enterprise (now the daily News-Enterprise).

Budde's first experience at Western was as a Junior Scholar during the summer of 1973, while still in high school. When he enrolled full-time at Western a year later, Budde was a journalism major. Throughout his years at Western he worked on the College Heights Herald and served as editor in the spring and fall of 1976. After graduating in 1977, Budde worked for a year at the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, then at The Courier-Journal in Louisville and USA Today. During his eight years at The Courier-Journal, Budde completed his MBA at the University of Louisville.

In August 1987, Budde joined Dow Jones News Retrieval where, as deputy editorial director, he oversaw design and development of new information services. In 1993, he developed the initial ideas and business plans for an online version of The Wall Street Journal and was asked to form a team to build it. He was named editor and directed the design, development and evolution of The Wall Street Journal Online, which debuted in 1996.

In January 2000, Budde added the title of publisher as The Wall Street Journal Online defied skeptics and became the largest paid-subscription news site on the Internet with about 700,000 subscribers.

Budde left the online Journal in late 2002 and launched a consulting firm, the Neil Budde Group. In November 2004, Budde returned to online news management as general manger of Yahoo! News, the No. 1 news site on the Internet, with more than 25 million monthly visitors.

In 2002, Budde was named one of four finalists for the World Technology Awards in the category of Media and Journalism. In 1998, he was named Business Journalist of the Year by TJFR, a newsletter covering business journalism.

Budde and his wife, Virginia B. Edwards (editor of Education Week), live in Richmond Hill, Ga., and Washington, D.C. Budde is based in Yahoo's Santa Monica, Calif., office.

Lee Robertson

In his more than half a century association with the school, Lee Robertson has earned the title “Mr. Western.”

Robertson, a native of Calhoun, is a 1950 graduate with a major in health and physical education and minors in English and biology. He completed his master’s degree in educational administration in 1957.

Robertson began his professional career as a teacher and coach at Park City High School in 1950-52 then moved to his native McLean County where he was teacher, coach and principal at Livermore High School.

In 1957, he became assistant superintendent of Barren County schools. In 1958, he was named superintendent.

While in Glasgow, Robertson was an active member and president of the Alumni Association National Board of Directors.

In April 1960, President Kelly Thompson asked Robertson to return to Western as director of Alumni Affairs and Placement Services. As alumni director, Robertson was instrumental in increasing the number of clubs from one to more than 50, creating quality Alumni publications, and beginning an annual giving program and other alumni activities.

Robertson was a member of the American Alumni Council and later the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. He was among the group that launched CASE-Kentucky to coordinate and unite advancement efforts among the state’s colleges and universities. In 2004, Robertson received CASE-Kentucky’s Beth K. Fields Award, which recognizes someone who continually goes over and above the call of duty and epitomizes the advancement profession.

The placement office became a separate department in 1971, but Robertson remained as alumni director until 1985. That’s when he retired for the first time and went to work in the private sector in Florida.

But Robertson soon returned from Florida and served as director of the WKU-Glasgow campus. Then he answered the call from Western again and served as men’s golf coach for six years.

Robertson now serves as special assistant to the vice president for Institutional Advancement, where his longtime association with Western alumni and friends allows him to assist the offices of Development and Alumni Relations and to continue his support and promotion of the University.

In August 2002, Robertson received the first Spirit of Western Award, which recognizes an individual who represents enthusiasm for Western, loyalty to the institution and principles of the Western experience and its motto “The Spirit Makes the Master.”

Robertson also served with the U.S. Army’s 44th tank battalion in World War II from 1942-45 and spent 18 months in the South Pacific. He was awarded five Bronze Arrow Heads for beachhead landings in New Guinea and the Philippine Islands.

Robertson and his wife, Joyce, live in Bowling Green. They have a daughter, Melinda; a son, Steve; and three granddaughters.

Ed Stansbury

Ed Stansbury has maintained a connection to Western since he arrived on the Hill in the mid-1920s. He turned 99 in July and will celebrate his 100th birthday during WKU’s Centennial.

A native of Corbin who grew up in the Shepherdsville area, Stansbury was a three-sport athlete, playing football, basketball and baseball for coach E.A. Diddle. He earned three varsity letters in each sport and was an All-State performer in football and basketball in 1929. He was a key performer on Western’s 1928 state championship football team and he was co-captain of the Hilltoppers as a senior in 1929.

Stansbury, a 1930 graduate, returned to Western in 1934 as an assistant football coach, and spent eight seasons as an assistant coach in football and basketball and three seasons as tennis coach.

Overall, in those three sports, the Western teams he was associated with as a coach ran up a total of 234 victories against only 47 losses and five ties – an 83 percent success ratio.

He served a stint in the military in World War II — in Europe, the Pacific and in the Pentagon. And, he survived after his ship was torpedoed by a German submarine in the Atlantic.

Following the war, Stansbury returned to the Hill in 1946 as director of athletics, head of the Department of Health and Physical Education and assistant football and basketball coach.

In mid-1948, he returned to the U.S. Air Force, retiring as a colonel in 1961. He then spent most of the next 10 years as manager of administrative services for Honeywell, Inc., in St. Petersburg, Fla. After a short stint with the St. Petersburg Times (conducting an investigative study of the city’s budget), Stansbury joined the staff of Bay Island Venture, a condominium company in South Pasadena, Fla., as a vice president. He was with Bay Island Venture for 18 years.

He was inducted into Western’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994.

Stansbury attributes his long relationship with Western to three people: Coach E.A. Diddle; Dr. Henry Hardin Cherry, Western’s first president; and former Athletics Director L.T. Smith, who encouraged him to earn a master’s degree from Peabody College.

In 1998, Stansbury pledged more than $1 million to fund three scholarship programs at Western: the Col. Edgar B. Stansbury Athletic Scholarship, the Edith R. Stansbury English Scholarship, and The Col. Edgar B. and Edith R. Stansbury Scholarship for Teacher Education. In recognition of his support, the second floor concourse of E.A. Diddle Arena is named the Col. Edgar B. Stansbury Concourse.

Stansbury is retired and lives in Largo, Fla. His wife, Edith, died in 1997.