Lowell Thomas, Jr.

Who is Lowell Thomas, Jr.?

Lowell Jackson Thomas, Jr. is a film and television producer who collaborated with his father, the accomplished reporter and author Lowell Thomas, on several projects before becoming an Alaskan State Senator in the early 1970s, and later the fifth Lieutenant Governor of Alaska. In the 1980s, he owned and operated Talkeetna Air Taxi, an Alaska bush flying service.

He graduated from the Taft School in 1942 and went on to Dartmouth College, before joining the United States Army Air Corps.

Lowell Thomas, Jr. was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

Invited with his father, Lowell Thomas Sr., by the Tibetan government to make a film there in 1949 with the hope that the their reports would help persuade the U.S. government to defend Tibet against the Chinese. The trip lasted 400 days, and the father and son were the last Westerners to reach Lhasa before the Chinese. CBS did not broadcast the resultant film, Expedition to Lhasa, Tibet, until years later, but his book about the expedition, Out of This World, published in 1950 became a bestseller.

In 2005, the Dalai Lama bestowed the International Campaign for Tibet's Light of Truth Award on Lowell Jr.