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Student Award Winners

Natalie Salatich Jacobson Journalism Scholarship

The generosity of Natalie Jacobson '65 and her longtime former employer, WCVB-TV in Boston, established the Natalie Salatich Jacobson Journalism Scholarship in May 2008. The first recipient is John Ferguson '09, who began his journalism career covering women's hockey and volleyball for The New Hampshire. In his junior year he became sports editor, where, along with covering every UNH athletic team as a writer, he discovered a passion for page design. As executive editor of TNH for the 2008-2009 school year, he looks forward to serving the community with new ideas. John is spending the summer as an editing intern at the Eagle-Tribune in North Andover, Mass. He hopes eventually to work as an editor for a large metropolitan newspaper, write the Great American Novel, and possibly teach someday.

Michael Kelly Journalism Scholarship

Amanda Flitter '10 is the 2008 winner of the Michael Kelly Journalism Scholarship. A graduate of Dover, N.H., High School, she enjoys all types of writing, from nonfiction to poetry. Halfway through her first journalism course at UNH, she had a revelation: Journalism matters. "Not only do I educate others, but I educate myself; I get to be a student for the rest of my life." Amanda will spend fall 2008 as a full-time reporting intern at the Gloucester Daily Times in Massachusetts and spring 2008 studying in Argentina for her other major, international affairs.

2007: Laura Kennedy '09 is living/arts editor of The New Hampshire as well as senior editor of Main Street magazine. She will spend summer 2008 as an editing intern at the Concord Monitor. After graduating from UNH, she hopes to become an entertainment journalist for a magazine such as Entertainment Weekly or Rolling Stone.

2006: Steve Bodnar '08 did a reporting internship in spring 2007 at The Telegraph of Nashua. He was a writing assistant at the Connors Writing Center on campus and assigning editor of The New Hampshire.

2005: Kristen Melamed '06 was a staff writer and news editor of The New Hampshire and did a reporting internship at the Portsmouth Herald. She is now the editor of The Record, a newspaper in Havre de Grace, Maryland.

The first Kelly winner, in 2004, was Michele Filgate '06. While at UNH, Michele was a news editor of The New Hampshire and interned with 60 Minutes in New York and with the Salem News in Massachusetts. After graduation she worked as a production assistant for the CBS Evening News in New York before returning to New Hampshire to be events coordinator for RiverRun Books in Portsmouth.

Laura Rice Journalism Award:

The 2008 winner of the Laura Rice Journalism Award is Abigail Crocker '08, who completed internships at the Portsmouth Herald and Channel 7 news in Boston. She also served as a staff writer and news editor of The New Hampshire and as writing assistant and outreach coordinator for the Connors Writing Center. After writing for a newspaper or magazine for a number of years, she hopes to teach writing.

With her 3.76 GPA, Danielle Clark ’07 was not just UNH’s 2007 student-athlete of the year (along with football wide receiver David Ball) but the journalism program’s 2007 winner of Laura Rice Journalism Award. Danielle wrote for The New Hampshire and did a reporting internship at the Gloucester Daily Times in Massachusetts.

The 2006 winner of the Laura Rice Award was Pat McClary, who served as sports editor and then editor-in-chief of The New Hampshire. Since graduation he has been a sportswriter for the Keene Sentinel in New Hampshire and the Daily Times-Call in Longmont, Colorado.

Past winners of the Laura Rice Award:

2005: Erin Dolan. Today: writer, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY.
2004: Melanie Asmar. Today: education reporter, Concord Monitor.
2003: Lisa Arsenault. Today: freelancing in Ohio.
2002: Lara Skinner. Today: technical writer and editor, Keene State College.

Tad Ackman Scholarship (not given every year)

Mike Farrell '09 is the 2008 winner of the Tad Ackman Scholarship. Mike, from the small New Hampshire town of Rollinsford, planned to major in anthropology and get a master's in archaeology. Inspired by his mother's experiences at Northwestern University, he switched to journalism when he transferred to UNH. He is spending the summer as a reporting intern at the Gloucester Daily Times and hopes eventually to become an international correspondent.

The 2006 recipient of the Tad Ackman scholarship was Krystal Hicks '07. Krystal started writing poetry at age 12 but switched to journalism in high school when she thought administration policies weren't working for students. "As soon as I saw my name in print, I knew I wanted to be a writer," she recalls. By senior year she was editor-in-chief of her school's student newspaper. Krystal minored in deaf studies, spent a semester studying in Ireland, and did a reporting internship in the New Hampshire bureau of the Eagle-Tribune of North Andover, Mass.

Poynter Institute for Media Studies

Chelsea Conaboy and Karen Sanborn, both '04, won fellowships to the Poynter Institute's summer reporting program in 2004. Since the highly competitive program takes only 16 students from a large national pool, UNH was proud to have two grads accepted.

Journalism students with high GPA's, you should definitely look into Poynter's summer programs for recent liberal arts grads -- both the reporting program and the visual journalism program. In fact, reading the Poynter Web site should be a daily obsession for you, as it is for working journalists.

Chelsea and Karen (now Karen Lovett) were the seventh and eighth** UNH journalism grads in a decade to win Poynter summer fellowships. Some of their work may still be posted on the program's Web site, Points South. Both now have reporting jobs in New Hampshire: Karen for The Telegraph of Nashua and Chelsea for the Concord Monitor.

Alumni memory test :

Here's who we think the previous Poynter journalism fellows were. Let us know if we've forgotten anyone. And if we don't know where you are, tell us!

Linda Hyatt Young '92, now a college English professor in upstate New York.
Byron Brown '94, now a lawyer in Washington, D.C.
Rebecca Burke '98.
Meg Heckman '01, now a reporter for the Concord Monitor.
Sara Newbury '02.
Jim Korpi '02, who did a photojournalism project in the Middle East as a Fulbright fellow and is now in grad school in Ohio. (Jim is so far the only UNH student admitted to Poynter's visual journalism program, though one 2006 grad did make it to the finals.)

Program Requirements

Course Descriptions

Journalism Internships