Jay Milner

Jay Milner (1926-2011) was a journalist who wrote for many organizations throughout his career in the field. Perhaps the most notable group he was a part of was the Maddogs. He also served in the US Navy during WWII, and taught at the Texas Christian University (TCU) as well as Southern Methodist University (SMU).

The son of John and Nina Milner, Jay was born on born October 30, 1926, near Muleshoe, Texas. He moved with his family around small towns based around cotton farms out in West Texas. They moved to Lubbock, Texas when Jay was in the second grade. Milner played football for his local high school team, there he would go on to be a part of the state champion football team at Lubbock High.

Milner attended Texas Technological College at Lubbock. He would then attend school at Pittsburgh College. Following his discharge from The United States Navy, Milner would go on to earn his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from University of Southern Mississippi in 1948 and 1951.

Milner became a reporter for the Associated Press and the Hattiesburg, Mississippi American, after he has coached high school football for three years. He was also the managing editor for Mississippi Delta Democrat-Times. Milner would move to New York City in 1959 to join the New York Herald Tribune to serve as the assistant to the editorial page editor. In 1961 Milner would publish his first novel, Incident at Ashton. Milner would then quit his job in order to move back to Texas and focus on his writing. He then became friends with a group of writers known as the Maddogs. After his teaching stint Milner would work as a news anchor for a Fort Worth PBS affiliate. Milner then would assume editorial duties for an underground newspaper that had been created in the 1960s known as the Iconoclast, based in Dallas. Later Milner would become the founding editor for a Texas Music magazine, however due to financial difficulties the magazine folded. In his later life Milner would write for the Lufkin Daily News and Cox newspaper for fifteen years.

Maddogs

The Maddogs were a group of men promoting the arts in Texas. Other notable members included Bud Shrake, Gary Cartwright, Larry L. King, Dan Jenkins, and Billie Lee Brammer. The group was known for their rebellious nature of their work and a party hard life style. Milner wrote a book about the group called Confessions of a Maddog: A Romp Through the High-Flying Texas Music and Literary Era of the Fifties to the Seventies.

In 1965 Milner would join the faculty at Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth as a journalism professor. He would spend three years at TCU before moving on to teach at Southern Methodist University (SMU).

Milner married his wife Gail in 1983, and had three children as well as three step children. Milner and his wife lived in Fort Worth since 1995. Milner passed away in 2011, he battled dementia in his ladder years, his wife Gail passed a few years after. They are survived by their children.