The Arizona Broadcasters Hall of Fame Award is arguably the highest award an Arizona broadcaster can receive during their career. The nomination process is incredibly competitive and many candidates spend years on the nomination list before we’re able to recognize their contributions. All inductees are chosen by their peers via our ABA board of directors. The 2021 class includes:

Mark Curtis: Mark has been a recognizable face on Phoenix TV since 1980 when he joined 12News (KPNX-TV) as a sports reporter. After leaving Arizona in 1987 to grow his career, he came back to 12News in 1995 as Chief Sports Anchor before moving to Evening News Anchor in 2004. Mark has covered just about every big story in Arizona over the last two decades and has a passion for the political world in Arizona. He’s won more than a dozen high profile awards during his career that range from Emmys to Murrows and is now one of Arizona’s longest serving news anchors in state history. 

Susan Karis: Susan has spent 30+ years in Arizona radio, perhaps most prominently as Executive Vice-President of Operations for Western Major Markets at Clear Channel Radio and now as VP of Sales at Hubbard Radio Phoenix. Susan has been named to the list of the “50 Most Influential Women in Radio” and was also the first radio-industry executive inducted into ASU’s Walter Cronkite School Alumni Hall of Fame. Susan is an avid community supporter, involved with several organizations throughout her career and currently serves on the Endowment Board of Trustees at the Walter Cronkite School in Phoenix.

Scott Vaughan: Scott started his broadcasting career while in college at the University of Arizona. He got part-time jobs at Tucson’s KGUN-TV and KUAT-TV, as well as summer work at Phoenix’s KTVK-TV, and received a $100 scholarship from the ABA to help him invest in the business.  After college, he went to work in sales at KGUN, growing through the ranks to General Manager in 1978. He was elected ABA Board Chair, joined the ABC affiliate board and NAB board and eventually left the GM chair to become the Director of Network Television Development for the Tucson-based Muscular Dystrophy Association.

All three inductees will be formally recognized at a to-be-determined event when it’s more comfortable to gather together with hundreds of our colleagues. We hope that event will happen in Q1 2022. This same event will also recognize our 2020 class of inductees: Jim Cross, Larry Daniels and Jeanne-Marie Condo. We’ll share more details as we’re able to finalize this celebration!

See all the inductees over the last 30 years.

Read the ABA press release about the 2021 Hall of Fame class.