Lillard Hill

Lillard Lee Hill Jr. (July 29, 1922 – December 8, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist, diplomat, and statesman who worked in radio and television in Oklahoma and Texas and served as a foreign correspondent for Voice of America and worked for the United States Information Agency and the US State Department.

Hill reported on and interviewed notable international figures including India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Hill was the first journalist to interview the 14th Dalai Lama after his escape from Tibet.

Hill was born on July 29, 1922, in Ada, Oklahoma to Lillard Lee Hill Sr., a building contractor, and Elizabeth Sue Owen Hill, a schoolteacher. As a boy, Hill contracted polio at age 8 and first used a cane and later a wheelchair to assist with his mobility.

Hill attended Horace Mann High School at East Central State College in Ada, Oklahoma, where he participated in marching band along with his brother James Douglas Hill and sister Virginia Sue Hill. Lillard Hill graduated from Horace Mann High School in 1940.

Hill attended East Central State College where he excelled in debate, winning first place in radio and poetry competitions in 1943.

Hill attended Texas Christian University where he met Betty Sue Stringer. They married in 1946.

Hill began his broadcasting career at KADA (AM), a radio station in Ada, Oklahoma serving as chief announcer and program director in the early 1940s.

While working at KADA in 1943, Hill was one of only one hundred people chosen from one thousand applicants to attend a summer session at Northwestern University for special training in radio broadcasting. KADA gave Hill a leave of absence to attend this training.