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This scholarship provides financial support for Cronkite undergraduate students.

Robert Harry Ellis, the first general manager of KAET/Arizona PBS, died in March 2021 at the age of 93 after battling bone cancer and kidney disease. Ellis, an ASU alumnus, began working at ASU in 1959 as director of radio operations and led the new television station, then known as KAET, from its launch in 1961 until 1987. He oversaw many of the station’s milestones, from the first nightly newscast in 1962 and the first purchase of color cameras in 1968 to the station’s first on-air fundraising event in 1975 and the creation of the long-running public affairs program “Arizona Horizon” in 1981.

Ellis was an associate professor at ASU, teaching a broadcast management class for 25 years and retired as the associate vice president for university relations.

Ellis was a founding member of the ASU Retirees Association, the Tempe Sports Authority and the Tempe Visitors and Convention Bureau and served on several boards, including the Phoenix Zoo Board, the Arizona Humanities Council and the national board of the Public Broadcasting Service. He is a member of the ASU College of Public Programs Hall of Fame and the Arizona Broadcasters Hall of Fame.