Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Contest deadline

Here's a reminder that the postmark deadline for this year's NINA contest entries is TOMORROW, June 30. You can enter either via mail or online. Full details on the NINA website. Good luck!


Monday, June 20, 2011

Combining Wordpress and Google Docs

Looking for an inexpensive way to integrate online and print newspaper? This VIDEO and accompanying blog post may give you some ideas. The Bangor Daily News has come up with a combination of Google Docs and Wordpress.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Tracking our scholarship winners

We’ve tracked down most of our 13 previous first-place NINA scholarship winners. Many are working in media. Here are brief updates.

2010 – Allison Prang, Bartlett High School

Allison just finished her freshman year as a journalism major at the University of Missouri. She’s been named city, state and nation editor for The Maneater, the student-run newspaper there. In April, Allison flew back to the Chicago area to attend a speech by her journalistic hero, Bob Woodward. A friend took this photo of the two of them together. It’s now Allison’s Facebook profile photo and someone even made it into a coffee mug for her.
Allison is interning this summer at the St. Louis Beacon, an online daily, and also is working for http://www.patch.com/.


2009 – Emily Busse, Prospect High School.

Emily is a student at University of Iowa, and is metro editor for the Daily Iowan.

2008 – Rebecca Krase, Deerfield High School.

Becca is studying abroad this year in Madrid, Spain. She’s working toward completing her dual-degree of communications and Spanish, and will graduate from the University of Missouri in December. In addition to studying in Spain, she’s also working as an assistant English teacher in a Madrid middle school. After graduation, she’ll be looking to get into either bilingual education or public relations for organizations that work with Chicago’s Latin American community.


2007 – Tara Grimes, Huntley High School.

Tara has been a reporter for KOMU-TV (NBC affiliate) in Columbia, Mo., the only university-owned commercial station in the U.S. She graduated in May 2011 from the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. More at http://www.taragrimes.com/.


2006 – Erika Strebel, Glenbard North High School.

Erika is a page designer copy editor, reporter and occasional photographer at the Beloit (Wis.) Daily News. She earned her B.S. degree from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. “It’s my first job since I graduated in December of 2009,” she says. “When I get a chance to do reporting, I usually write feature stories. I’ve roamed the pastures with alpacas, learned how to make homemade soap and even hung out a local shooting range all between designing for our daily paper and special sections.”


2005 – Whitney Wyckoff, Elk Grove High School.

Whitney has been temping the past year and a half for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C. She’s worked as an assistant producer, production assistant and editorial assistant on a variety of desks and shows, including science, digital news and Weekend Edition. “Right now, I’m a rundown editor for ‘All Things Considered,’” she writes. “As a rundown editor, I edit dacs lines (which are used by member stations as intros), write promos and coordinate the show’s Web presence.”

As a University of Illinois student, her internships included Congressional Quarterly and the Chicago Tribune’s Washington Bureau.


2004 – Kristen Sackley, Mundelein High School.

Kristen works as a sales & marketing specialist at EnvirOx, LLC, in Champaign, Ill. She handles internal and external communications, creation of marketing materials and project management. At the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, she worked three years as a reporter, designer and editor at the Daily Illini. She graduated in 2008 with a degree in advertising and now is pursing an MBA at the university.


2003 – Matt Weir, Naperville Central High School.

Information not available. We do know that Matt graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University


2002 – Laurel Jorgensen, Prospect High School, Arlington Heights.

Laurel lists herself on LinkedIn.com as web editor at the American Bar Association, Chicago. Previously, she was overnight supervisor, night broadcast editor and reporter at Associated Press. She completed both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Northwestern University in four years.


2001 – Brandon Hoops, Freeport High School.

According to soulation.com, Brandon works part-time as a teaching assistant at the Columbia Missourian, and full-time as a campus missionary with Great Commission Ministries at The Rock Church. He coaches a junior high basketball team. And, he blogs at http://www.hoopshundred.com/. Brandon graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 2005.


2000 – Hannah Kenser, Joliet West High School.

Hannah (Kenser) Heck graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 2004 with a B.A. in Psychology. While there, she was an editor of the Harvard Crimson as well as a contributing writer to the Harvard Political Review. Upon graduation, she went to work for Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue as his criminal justice policy adviser.

“I advised the governor on criminal justice legislation and budget priorities and helped implement policies to curb methamphetamine production and use, decrease recidivism in the Georgia prison system and decrease highway traffic fatalities,” she writes.

In 2007, Hannah was asked to serve as the governor’s Director of Policy. She helped lead a staff of five advisers in all policy areas, including healthcare, transportation, education and the environment, as we developed legislative and budget initiatives and advised the governor whether to sign or veto legislation.

In 2009, she entered Emory University School of Law. This summer she’s working at the Atlanta law firm of Alston and Bird, and plans to graduate from Emory Law in 2012. She also serves on the board of the Georgia Department of Community Health, where she chairs the Care Management Committee, and is vice chairman of the board at Westside Atlanta Charter School.


1999 – Nathan Charlan, Johnsburg High School.

Nathan is director of development and executive producer at Warm Springs Productions, Missoula, Mont. He creates new concepts for television series, casts for new talent/characters, creates television show formats, writes treatments for television series, field produces/directs shoots, and ultimately pitches series ideas to TV networks.

He and his wife, Renee, have a 4-year-old son, Zachary, with spastic quadriplegia Cerebral Palsy. Zachary is the inspiration behind them creating Exceptional Family TV, a website that focuses on raising special-needs children. They live in Arvada, Colo.


1998 – Laura Kuhn, Dixon High School.

Laura lists herself on LinkedIn.com as a professional copywriter and editor at Professional Medical, Inc., and also a freelance copy editor and proofreader at Triumph Books. She graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.