Wisconsin
Honorees
2019
Denise Callaway
Denise Callaway began her career as a journalist in the summer of 1975 in her hometown of Kokomo, Indiana as the cable television station’s noon news anchor. She worked at WTWO-TV in Terre Haute, Indiana while attending Indiana State University and was hired as a full-time reporter at WISH-TV in Indianapolis when she was 21 years old. After pursuing a master’s degree, Callaway was hired as a general assignment reporter at WTMJ-TV in 1979. During her 12 years at the station she covered general assignment news, education, city government, and health issues. She reported from Washington, D.C., France and Belfast on issues ranging from education reform, the Iranian hostage crisis, the violent religious and ethnic crisis in Northern Ireland, and civil rights in Milwaukee and nationwide. She is among the first African-American female broadcast news reporters in Indianapolis and Milwaukee. After leaving day-to-day reporting to work for Milwaukee Public Schools, Callaway continued her journalistic efforts working for Milwaukee PBS for more than a decade where she hosted 4th Street Forum, a weekly public affairs show; was a panelist and substitute host for the public affairs show Interchange; and hosted and reported for several Milwaukee PBS series and documentaries. Her work has been recognized by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association, the Milwaukee Press Club, Associated Press, and other organizations. Callaway served on many boards including the Milwaukee Public Library, RadioMilwaukee, the WUWM advisory board, the Indiana State University Foundation, and is the founding chair of the ISU African- American Alumni Association. She was also a founding member of 100 Black Women-Milwaukee. She recently retired from Milwaukee Public Schools.
Liddie Collins
Liddie Collins is a TV producer. She’s a graduate of UW-Whitewater. She started her career in communications at the Milwaukee Courier and WNOV Radio. For forty-three years she worked at Milwaukee PBS to bring stories to the air that inform. Recent topics include the Amazing Grace Chorus, a chorus of Alzheimer’s patients and their families, Vietnam veteran stories, and a human trafficking special. She was one of the producers for Black Nouveau, a program that has garnered her numerous awards; a regional Emmy® Award, National Association of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence Award, and a New York Festival Award. Other programs she’s worked on were Great Lakes Gardener :Garden Paths. Working on national show Tracks Ahead brought about learning and sharing new information and connecting with a difference audience. Working on the Great Circus parade and the many ethnic festivals has lasting warm memories. When not working at Milwaukee PBS, you will find her working with young people as a Crisis Stabilizer with Running Rebels Community Agency. She puts in many hours volunteering with Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. – Epsilon Kappa Omega Chapter, Wisconsin Black Media Association – President and the League of Women Voters. She’s a member of NABJ-National Association of Black Journalists. Her love of African-American people, its history and quest for Freedom is what has motivated her life.
Clinton Fillinger
Clinton J. Fillinger has been a photojournalist for 52 years. Clint was born and raised in Marinette, Wisconsin. After graduating high school, Clint came to Milwaukee and attended Layton School of Art, now known as MIAD, and received a degree in photography in 1965. In August 1965, he was at Central Film Lab and was a stringer for Channel 4 TV. In 1966, Clint started at Channel 18 as a photojournalist. The fun really began February 1967 when Clint went to work at TV 6 where he stayed until he retired in November 2016. Clint had a rich and intriguing career. He loved every part of his career as a photojournalist. He has covered all forms of news from fires, murders, conventions, trials, and tragedies. He has also interviewed every U.S. President from LBJ to George W. Bush. In addition, he has traveled almost around the world from Thailand, to Paris, and Three Mile Island for the nuclear meltdown. Meeting new and different people every day was also a love of Clint’s. He is fond of relaying his unique experience during his interview with Timothy Leary, a clinical psychologist who advocated for use of marijuana in the 1970s. The entertainer Clint enjoyed meeting the most was Anthony Quinn.
Bob Lindmeier
Bob earned his B.S. Degree in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1979. He started his career in 1980 at Weather Central, a weather consulting firm based in Madison. While at Weather Central, Bob observed the debut of the first television graphics system based on a Apple 2C personal computer in 1980. Over the years at Weather Central he would witness the rapid development of new generations of weather graphic systems developed at Weather Central that revolutionized the television broadcast industry. Eventually Bob became Vice President of Weather Central’s Broadcast Division. Weather Central also provided broadcast services to WKOW-TV in Madison. Through the 1980s he presented weathercasts in the mornings and weekends, and then became the Chief Meteorologist in 1989, a position he has held ever since. Bob is in his 40th year as a weathercaster at WKOW-TV. He strongly believes in climate change education, and has used his position as a well known and respected member of the community to give well over 50 presentations to school, civic, and faith based groups. With the approval of WKOW-TV, Bob has frequently presented the science of climate change on-air during his weathercasts. He is a member of the American Meteorological Society’s Station Scientist Committee. This committee encourages broadcast meteorologists to speak out about climate change. He is a member of Citizen’s Climate Lobby, a non-profit and non-partisan organization focused on national policies to address
Terry Sater
Terry Sater was born in Minneapolis, raised in Wisconsin, attended college in California, and earned his B.A. from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Sater started his television news career in 1983 as a bureau reporter for KELO-TV after working as a print reporter.
An admitted “news geek” since elementary school, Terry pursued television journalism to help people.
Sater has asked tough questions of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton as well as Les Paul and Thomas Ferebee, the bombardier who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
In Germany, Sater reported on freed American journalist, Terry Anderson, who was held captive by terrorists for more than six years.
A defining moment, Terry and photojournalist Jeff Dillon, were violently attacked covering an investigative story in Florida. Four suspects were criminally charged. One suspect later committed murder.
Sater reported extensively on the Gainesville student murders as well as serial killer Aileen Wuornos. Witnessed an electric chair execution. And, reported on the execution of Ted Bundy.
Sater won Emmy® Awards as an anchor during the Sikh Temple Shooting and as a reporter during the Lake Delton flood.
A lover of the arts, Sater danced and sang professionally, plays guitar, and mandolin, and writes music.
Sater is an avid cyclist and completed two sprint triathlons in 2018.
Dewayne Walls
Dewayne Walls is an award-winning 33 year employee of WISN-TV Channel 12. Dewayne began his career at Channel 12 as a floor director, and in the course of his long and varied tenure at the station, he has been honored by the National Association of Black Journalists, the Milwaukee Press Club, and by the Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences with two regional Emmy® Awards. Both Lois and Roosevelt Walls, Dewayne’s parents, hail from Memphis Tennessee, and Dewayne as the first member of his family to be born and raised in Milwaukee counts among his many career highlight the opportunity to try and make his hometown a better place to live and work. He is the former Boys and Girls Club Alumni of the Year and credits the Franklin Place Boys Club with much of his success.