Columnist, editorial contributor, and former full-time journalist, Wiley W. Hilburn, Jr. lives in Ruston, Louisiana where he heads the Department of Journalism at Louisiana Tech University. Hilburn launched his journalism career in the 1950s at the Ruston Daily Leader—his self-proclaimed “golden times.” Still later he reported for and served as an editor of the Monroe Morning World. In 1962 he became an editorial writer for the Shreveport Times (now The Times of Shreveport). Hilburn returned to Louisiana Tech University in 1968 to head the Department of Journalism and the University News Bureau. Hilburn and his wife, Ellen, have three children—Greg, Kevin, and Anne Marie.