2025 Distinguished Alumni Awardees

Michael Burton '74 is retired from a career that is many a youngster's dream. For more than 20 years, he served the animals of Busch Gardens Tampa Bay as senior veterinarian. Supervising the collection's preventive medicine program, he also co-starred in The Wildlife Docs, an Emmy-nominated TV series that ran for five years on ABC's Saturday morning lineup. A Wellsboro native, he obtained his veterinary degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier in his career, he pursued his profession at zoos in Colorado Springs and Wellington, New Zealand. Today, he lives in Inverness, Florida, where he creates award-winning sculptures of wildlife.