Kane Farabaugh

Class of 1995 Kane Farabaugh is an accomplished, award-winning television broadcast journalist, documentary filmmaker, writer, and digital producer in a career that spans three decades and datelines ranging from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to riots in Ferguson, Missouri to U.S. Presidential elections to the Olympics. He is also an experienced interviewer discussing world events with, among others, Presidents Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Vice Presidents Walter Mondale, Al Gore, and Joe Biden, actors Tom Hanks, William Shatner, Ewan McGregor, and Robin Williams, film directors George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder, Polish President and Nobel Peace prize recipient Lech Walesa, and former Soviet Premier Michael Gorbachev. He currently serves as Midwest Correspondent for Voice of America, one of the largest broadcasting organizations in the world. In 2019, he was awarded first place in the National Headliner Awards for his coverage of the trade dispute between the United States and China and the impact on farmers in the American heartland. His career began in Korea and Japan as a military broadcaster with the U.S. Air Force, later working as a commercial TV reporter in Rockford, Illinois; Tampa, Florida; Bakersfield, California; Charleston, West Virginia; and Syracuse, New York. As a civilian Director of Special Projects for the American Forces Network Europe in Germany, Farabaugh managed complex television projects including coverage of military operations in the Middle East. He was honored as the 2002 Army Civilian Broadcast Journalist of the Year, and was twice awarded the Civilian Service Commendation Medal. Farabaugh also creates independently produced, original television programming from concept through production to broadcast, including the landmark, five-part documentary series “A Golden Cross to Bear: A Story of the 33rd Division in World War 1” which earned two Midwest Emmy® Awards. It is the fourth Emmy® Award among over 20 Emmy nominations for his production company KaneStar Productions in association with PBS. Farabaugh is also the recipient of several RTDNA Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards, Associated Press Awards, International Clarion Awards, Chicago Headline Club, Society of Professional Journalists, Religion News Association, and New York Festivals Awards among numerous others. He is a member of Rotary and serves on the board of the Ottawa, Illinois YMCA.