HEARST JOURNALISM  AWARDS  PROGRAM

Contact: Jan C. Watten, Program Director

415.908.4560 or jwatten@hearstfdn.org

NEWS  RELEASE

San Francisco – The top 10 winners in college feature writing were announced today in the 49^th annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program, in which 110 undergraduate journalism programs at colleges and universities across the nation are eligible to participate.

First Place has been awarded to TREY  BUNDY, a junior from San Francisco State University.  He will receive a $2,000 scholarship for his winning article titled “Higher Education” published in the SF Weekly.  Trey will also have the opportunity to compete in the National Writing Championship in San Francisco next June.  San Francisco State University will receive a matching grant, as do the journalism departments of all scholarship winners. 

Other top ten scholarship winners are: 

THOR  NYSTROM, University of Kansas, $1,500 scholarship

RYAN  KOST, Arizona State University, third place, $1,000 scholarship

JESSE  GUNTHER,  Brigham Young University, fourth place, $750 scholarship

DOMINICK  ELIJAH  TAO, University of Florida, fifth place, $600 scholarship

BRIAN SPEGELE, Indiana University, sixth place, $500 scholarship

EBONIE  LEDBETTER, Florida A&M University, seventh place, $500 scholarship

STEPHANIE  GOMES, University of Illinois, eighth place, $500 scholarship

JENNIFER  LUNA, University of Nevada, ninth place, $500 scholarship

ERINN  CONNOR, Syracuse University, tenth place, $500 scholarship

San Francisco State University received first place in the Intercollegiate Writing Competition with the highest accumulated student points from the first competition of the academic year.  They are followed by:  Arizona State University; University of Kansas; University of Montana; Brigham Young University; University of Florida; Indiana University, Florida A&M University; University of Illinois; University of Georgia.

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program is conducted under the auspices of accredited schools of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, and fully funded and administered by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.  It consists of six monthly writing, three photojournalism, four broadcast news competitions and one multimedia competition, with Championship finals in all divisions except multimedia.  The program awards more than $550,000 in scholarships and grants annually.

Judging the writing competition this year are:  Arthur S. Brisbane, ASB Consulting, East Dennis, MA; Jeff Cohen, Executive Vice President and Editor, Houston Chronicle, TX; and Peter Bhatia, Executive Editor, The Oregonian, Portland, OR.

There were a record 138 students from 78 universities and colleges who participated in the program's first competition of this academic year.  Samples of winning work can be viewed in the monthly winners section of the website which is updated shortly after each competition.