Distinguished Alumni Award Winner Profile

Francis C. Miller was born and received his early education in Moravia. He attended Albia Junior College from 1936 to '38 and taught in the Appanoose County Schools for one year before entering the U of I in 1939.

He worked at the Employee People's National Bank and at a dairy farm in Moravia and taught government and economics at the Moravia High School before joining the Maytag Dairy Farms in 1945.

In 1948, Miller was named to the board of directors of the dairy farms and as financial secretary to the Maytag Family. In 1954 he was named to the board of the Fred Maytag Family Foundation.

Miller became a Maytag Company Foundation Board member in 1964 and has been vice president and trustee since 1973.

He has been active in the Boy Scouts of America, Kiwanis Club and Newton Community Chest, for which he served as president from 1971-73.

In 1978 Miller was named to the board of Progress, Inc., a new Jasper County vocational rehabilitation workshop for handicapped citizens, and this year he was selected as secretary of that organization.

He has served as a deacon, elder and a member of the board of trustees of the First Christian Church of Newton, and he was chairman of the board for several years.

Miller represented the Fred Maytag Family Foundation Board at the ground breaking ceremony for the Fred Maytag II Auditorium at the U of I's Museum of Art in 1966.