2007 – 2008 Writing Winners
Of the 576 writing entries received in the 2007-2008 writing competitions, 8 students’ articles qualified them for the Hearst National Writing Championship in San Francisco, where they competed for additional scholarship awards. This special event consisted of an on-the-spot assignment and a press interview. The finalists’ stories were judged for accuracy, writing quality, enterprise and innovation.
On Wednesday, June 2nd, shortly after arriving in the city, the finalists met with the judges for orientation and assignments. This year the on-the-spot assignment was: “Going green in San Francisco.” The finalists’ press interview took place with Chef and Restaurateur Alice Waters of Chez Panisse on Wednesday morning. The final deadline was Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. by which point the news story from the interview, a personality/profile of Alice Waters, and the spot news piece were due. The judges made their decisions by Thursday afternoon and the winners were announced at the awards ceremony that evening.
The first through third place winners were awarded scholarships of $5,000, $4,000, and $3,000 respectively and are featured below. The five finalists who earned $1,500 scholarship awards were: Nicholas Compton from University of Iowa, Tiara Etheridge from University of Oklahoma, Angela Haupt from Pennsylvania State University, Ephraim Payne from University of Oregon, and Jennifer Tramm from University of Arizona. Two additional awards of $1,000 each were given to Nicholas Compton for Article of the Year and Tiara Etheridge for Best Reporting Technique for their articles submitted in the monthly competitions.
