How to read, update, or manipulate controls in the Master Page from a web page that uses the Master Page

I have a corporate master page that has some navigation controls, and a couple of text boxes that are hidden (containing user information).  Once I am working in a web page that uses this Master Page (MasterPageFile="~/CIP_Header.master"), I cannot figure out how to (a) reference and (b) read/write to/or set properties of the controls in the Master Page.  

A. For instance, there are several standard navigation buttons in the Master Page.  When a page using the Master Page is opened, I would like to change the font of the button corresponding to the current page, so that the text becomes bold and the color changes to red.  In the Master Page, the button control is named btnProgram, so how do I reference and change the properties from a form that uses this Master Page?

B.  There are also two hidden textboxes in the Master Page, named tbUserName and tbUserEntity.  How do I reference these controls from a web page using this Master Page so that I can read or update the text property in these two textboxes?

I am using VB/Net in the code behind.

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