Jim Payne is an award winning journalist/news anchor from Green Bay, Wisconsin

Green Bay, Wisconsin

Green Bay is a city in and the county seat of Brown County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, located at the head of Green Bay, a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It has an elevation of above sea level and is located north of Milwaukee. As of the 2010 United States Census,...

. Payne co-anchors the 4:00, 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. news broadcasts for NBC-TV affiliate WESH-TV Channel 2, in Orlando, FL.

Payne has earned numerous awards from the Associated Press

Associated Press

The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 and the Radio and TV News Directors Association, and he also received the North Carolina Governor's Award for Community Service.

Payne is a member of the board of directors of Special Olympics

Special Olympics

Special Olympics is the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, providing year-round training and competitions to more than 3.1 million athletes in 175 countries....

 Florida and works on the annual Holiday Heroes campaign for the Make-A-Wish Foundation

Make-A-Wish Foundation

The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a 501 non-profit organization founded in the United States that grants wishes to children who have life-threatening medical conditions. The charity now operates in forty-seven countries around the world through thirty-six affiliate offices.The president & CEO of this...

 of Central and northern Florida, and with fund-raising at the Edgewood Children's Ranch in Orlando.

Payne attended Purdue University

Purdue University

Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...

 where he earned a bachelors degree in communications. He is a WESH

WESH

WESH is the NBC affiliate in Orlando, Florida. It is licensed to Daytona Beach, with studio facilities in Winter Park. It transmits its digital signal on VHF channel 11, which redirects to virtual channel 2.1, reflecting its former analog channel assignment, through PSIP. It is currently owned by...

 news anchor. Jim Payne received the George Foster Peabody Award for a month long investigative series "Building Homes: Building Problems". He was also given the Alfred I. duPont Award for a story on the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when shortly before it was scheduled to conclude its 28th mission, STS-107, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, resulting in the death of all seven crew members...

.

Payne worked at WRAL, the CBS affiliate, in Raleigh, North Carolina before moving to WESH.