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POWELL, Wyo. - Seven current and former Northwest College Trail journalists will receive regional awards in April from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the nation’s oldest and largest journalism organization dedicated to ethics, training, education and more.
The former staffers include Deborah Cobb, Neal Hines, Mark Keierleber, Danny Menig and Reed Tobol. Current staffers are Editor-in-Chief Gigi Hoagland and senior reporter and ad manager Jessica Keller.
“I’m thrilled to learn that, for a second consecutive year, SPJ will recognize the accurate and ethical reporting and photography that occurs daily at this nationally-known, award-winning college newspaper,” Holly J. Wolcott, an NWC journalism instructor and Trail adviser, said this week.
The email announcement was sent to Wolcott in mid-March. Wolcott, Hoagland, Keller and several other current staffers travel to Denver April 12-14 to receive the awards and attend the SPJ Region IX spring conference.
Individual student placings have not been revealed but any first-place win automatically qualifies a journalist for critique at the national level. Cobb won a national first place last year for column writing.
This year, Cobb will receive a regional award for in-depth reporting on student mothers; Hines won for general news photography (“Empty Bowls” shot), sports photography (wrestling) and a photo illustration; Keller will be recognized for breaking news reporting on NWC’s Veteran’s Club and general news reporting for a board of trustees meeting on policy adherence; Menig for sports writing on soccer; and Tobol for feature writing on a large donation to the Ag Club.
For editorial writing, Menig, Keierleber (both former co-editors-in-chief) and Hoagland will be recognized. Funding for the Denver trip was approved by the NWC Student Senate the last week in March.
More information about SPJ is available online. Further questions can be directed to Holly Wolcott at 307-754-6444.