San Francisco – Winners have been announced in the Feature Writing Competition of the 2024-2025 Hearst Journalism Awards Program. The winners were selected from 149 entries from 79 schools submitted in the first writing competition of the year.

First Place has been awarded to Lauren Brensel, a senior from University of Florida.
Lauren wins a $3,000 scholarship for the article “When private pilots falter, air controllers are saviors of skies.”
Lauren also qualifies for the National Writing Championship in June 2025.

Second Place, $2,000 award, Natalie La Roche Pietri, Florida International University
Third Place, $1,500 award, Abby McCutchan, Texas Christian University
Fourth Place, $1,000 award, Maya Waid, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Fifth Place, $1,000 award, Emily Nyberg, University of Iowa
The top five winning schools will receive matching grants.

Sixth-through-tenth place finalists:
Sixth Place, certificate, Sinclair Holian, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Seventh Place, certificate, Sarah Henry, University of Florida
Eighth Place, certificate, Naomi Delkamiller, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Ninth Place, certificate, Lu Warnke, University of Georgia
Tenth Place, certificate, Aspen Anderson, University of Washington

University of Florida is in first place in the Intercollegiate Writing Competition with the highest accumulated
student points in the first writing competition of the year.
They are followed by:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Florida International University (tie)
Texas Christian University (tie)
University of Iowa
University of Washington
University of Georgia (tie)
University of Nebraska-Lincoln (tie)
Indiana University
Arizona State University

The top three intercollegiate winners earn $10,000, $5,000 and $2,500 respectively. The final
intercollegiate winners will be announced after the completion of the four writing competitions and presented during the National Championships in San Francisco this June.

The writing judges are: Maria Reeve, Managing Editor/Vice President, The Star Tribune; Sue Campbell, Managing Editor, Features, The Star Tribune; David Callaway, Founder and Editor, Callaway Climate Insights.

The 65th annual Hearst Journalism Awards Program includes four writing, two photo, one audio, two television, one podcast and four multimedia competitions offering up to $700,000 in scholarships, matching grants and stipends.  Currently, there are 105 universities of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication with accredited undergraduate journalism programs are eligible to participate in the Hearst competitions.

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