ORONO – University of Maine journalism students will get the inside scoop from veteran reporters thanks to a new fund established by alumna Anne Lucey in memory of her late husband, Alan Miller, who taught journalism at UMaine for more than two decades.

The Alan Miller Fund for Excellence in Communication and Journalism will revive a lecture series from the 1970s and 1980s in which outstanding journalists came to UM to give talks, attend classes and offer career advice and insight.

Students honed their craft with journalistic icons such as Rushworth Kidder, then editorial page editor for the Christian Science Monitor, and David Lamb, then foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.

A member of the faculty from 1967 to 1991, Miller was chairman of the journalism department and adviser for the student newspaper. He was an enthusiastic supporter and coordinator of the lecture series, which enabled experienced journalists to motivate and excite aspiring reporters.

Lucey, who earned a degree in journalism from UM in 1982, recalls how students looked forward to hearing the reporters reminisce about their journalistic exploits.

“Interacting with working journalists who go into the classroom, help with writing skills and tell war stories can be a powerful thing,” she said. “It was for me.”

Senior vice president for regulatory policy at CBS Corporation in Washington, D.C., Lucey said her goal now is to celebrate her husband’s love of journalism and teaching. “UMaine brought together everything he loved.”

Lucey’s gift will “develop a new tradition for a new generation of journalism students, maintain and strengthen the communication and journalism department’s connection to the Maine Press Association, and keep alive professor Miller’s work of connecting students with successful professionals,” said John Sherblom, chairman of the department.

Noting Miller’s “enormous impact on the lives and careers of his students,” UM President Robert Kennedy said he was “delighted and tremendously thankful that Anne Lucey has chosen to honor her late husband with a gift that will benefit our journalism students for many generations to come.”

Journalism professor Kathryn Olmstead, who helped coordinate the visiting writer program, said she was pleased that it’s making a comeback because it had been a valuable addition to the curriculum.

“These successful journalists were extremely inspiring. They would talk about their achievements and serve as professional role models for students who would ask questions about their work and their experiences,” she said.

Author of “The History of Current Maine Newspapers,” Miller was familiar with almost every daily and weekly newspaper in the state and was able to help students obtain summer internships and jobs after they graduated, Olmstead said.

He was committed to staying in touch with real-world journalism himself, she added. Long after he was a full professor he continued to work in newsrooms during the summer and on sabbaticals.

“He believed he should keep up with a profession transformed by technology in order to be an effective teacher,” she said.

Stories about Miller still circulate, according to Ann Leffler, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “What I hear was how he mentored students and encouraged them to become journalists and to believe they had stories to tell. He reminded them journalism was a calling and encouraged them to heed that calling and its high standards.”

Miller was indeed a guiding force, former students agree.

“He’s the reason I’m now into journalism,” said Steve Betts, who grew up in Stonington, earned a journalism degree from UM in 1981 and is now editor of the Courier Gazette in Rockland. “He was passionate about his profession and transferred that passion to me.”

Steve Olver, a Hampden native who also graduated in 1981 with a degree in journalism, called Miller a gifted teacher who enjoyed working one on one with his students. “He was such a pro – he’d go over everything and really explain the craft of writing,” said Olver, design editor at the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Her late husband was the quintessential newsman, said Lucey. Publisher and editor of the Amherst Journal in Massachusetts which he purchased after graduating from Boston University in 1952, he subsequently worked for newspapers including the European edition of Stars and Stripes. An overseas correspondent for the Springfield Union Leader in Massachusetts, he covered the fall of the Berlin Wall.

As adviser for the UMaine student newspaper, he loved editing students’ writing and “probably knew more about what was happening on campus than anybody,” Lucey said. “He read all these stories from all these kids who were out reporting, whether their articles made the newspaper or not.”

A lover of words, her husband often perused the dictionary for entertainment and was rarely without a notebook and a pen to record observations about the world around him.

“The written word was his life,” she said. “He was always leaving me notes. I’d wake up and there would be a note on the counter. It was his way of starting and ending the day.”