FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

March 6, 2006                                                                           

 

Contact: Chelsey Walden, chapter president

E-mail: cwalden@iastate.edu

Telephone:  (608) 469-1339

 

Greenlee students earn

nine Mark of Excellence Awards

 

AMES, Iowa – The Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University had nine winners in the Society of Professional Journalists’ Mark of Excellence Awards for 2005, the national office in Indianapolis announced March 3.

Individual winners included Eric Gapstur, Erin McCuskey, Ricky Rud, and the team of Daniel Brauer and Louis Kishkunas.

Gapstur won for a series of editorial cartoons he did for the Iowa State Daily. McCuskey won for her article on the Iraq War that appeared in Ethos. Rud’s portrait of two brothers from Kenya on the ISU men's track team appeared in the Daily, while Brauer and Kishkunas’s feature titled "Zero Degrees from Center" about an ISU student running for city council appeared on ISUtv.

Other recipients from the Greenlee School include the Iowa State Daily for Best All-Around Daily Newspaper; Ethos and Uhuru for Best Student Magazine published more than once a year; and both the Centennial of the Greenlee School and History of the Iowa State Daily Web sites for Best Independent Online Publications.

The actual place for each winning entry will be revealed when the top-three finishers will be given their awards April 7-8 at the SPJ Region VII Conference in St. Louis. The conference will be held at the Holiday Inn Select in downtown St. Louis and at the Post-Dispatch newspaper.

Winners from Iowa State who are interested in attending the regional conference are asked to contact Joe Owens, vice president of the ISU Chapter of SPJ, at joeowens@iastate.edu, no latter than March 15.

Region VII includes chapters in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. The following universities have active chapters in Region VII: Drake, Iowa and Iowa State; Baker, Emporia State, Kansas, Kansas State and Wichita State; Central Missouri State, Missouri, Northwest Missouri State, Southeast Missouri State and Truman State; and Nebraska-Omaha.

            Featured at this year’s regional convention are: Walt Harrington, former Washington Post reporter and author of "Intimate Journalism: The Art and Craft of Reporting Everyday Life"; Matt Sedensky of the Associated Press, who will discuss covering Hurricane Katrina; Jaimi Dowdell, computer-assisted reporting  specialist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; and Christine Tatum, SPJ president-elect and  business writer with the Denver Post,  who will present a lecture titled "Boot Camp for Young  Journalists."

            Registration is $40 for SPJ student members and $50 for non-members.

            In other ISU chapter news, the organization will hold its March meeting on Wednesday, March 8, in Hamilton Hall 172. Featured guests are Lucas Grundmeier, Jared Strong, Lauren Burt and Beth Loberg, who served as interns at the Des Moines Reigster in the fall. Grundmeier was editor-in-chief of the Iowa State Daily for the 2004-05 academic year.

            Pizza and drink will be served. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m.

 

 

 

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