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05/26/2017

Ohio News Media Foundation 2017 scholarship recipients

By Ann Riggs, Secretary and Scholarship Coordinator  

The Ohio News Media Association is pleased to announce our ONMF scholarship winners.  Five scholarships are being awarded this year; two University Journalism Scholarships of $2,000 each, one ONWA Annual Scholarship of $2,000, one Harold K. Douthit Scholarship of $1,500, and one Minority Journalism Scholarship of $1,500.  A total of $9,000 in scholarships will be awarded.  Applicants must be majoring in a field relevant to our industry, particularly journalism, advertising, marketing, or a communications degree program.  Meet our winners.

Camryn A. McCraryMinority Journalism Scholarship:  Camryn A. McCrary, Orrville High School

Camryn is a four-year academic honor roll student taking college level classes at The University of Akron-Wayne College while maintaining a 3.7 GPA from Orrville High School.  She is vice president of the National Honor Society and is captain of the girl’s tennis team.  She balances school with her responsibilities in numerous extracurricular activities, such as track and field, earth science, art, drama clubs, and women’s symphonic choir. 

Additionally, Camryn worked on Ohio Congressman Jim Renacci’s re-election campaign gathering opinions about a political candidate and learned that though we might differ on certain issues, we all strive for the same thing.  She is a community volunteer in a nursing home, assists with swim meets, tennis youth camps, and people to people ministries.  Camryn composed a poem while in creative writing class called “The Mouse that Roared” which has been nominated for publication in The American Library of Poetry.  She plans on attending San Diego State University this fall and will get her degree in Marketing and International Business.

Harold K. Douthit Scholarship:  Alberto Jones, University of Cincinnati

Alberto Jones_160pixelsAlberto, a first generation college student, firmly believes you can do anything you want to in life as long as you put your mind to it.  He has always excelled in school and at age 10, after visiting Wright State University, began setting a goal to attend college.  He graduated as Vice-President of his high school class with a 3.4 GPA. Because he was very interested in news issues of the day and wanting to learn more, it became clear that he would pursue journalism as a career.

Alberto is one of the top recipients in the University Of Cincinnati Department Of Journalism.  Currently, he is staff reporter for The News Record, the student newspaper.  In 2016 he earned the Jim Knippenberg Memorial Scholarship, and the 2017 Scripps Howard Internship Scholarship.  In addition, he is a 2017 Usoni recipient, a leadership award from the University of Cincinnati African American Resource and Cultural Center.  He also serves as Co-President and Founder of UC’s Association of Black Journalists.  In addition to his leadership roles at UC, he works for the Department of History as their correspondent and electronic media coordinator.  Alberto has been on the dean’s list every quarter and has a 3.88 GPA.

ONWA Annual Scholarship:  Emily Schnipke, The University of Toledo

Emily SchnipkeEmily experienced a strange route to finding her career path in communication.  She wanted to be just like her grandpa and spent summers gardening and working with him in his construction company.  In high school she took every form of engineering class offered.  She soon discovered pouring cement and putting on new shingles was physically demanding and not for her.  Lucky for Emily, she realized she had talent as a writer. 

Since Emily’s first journalism class, her interest and passion in the world of journalism have grown.  She finds the process of finding a topic, interviewing and writing an article fascinating.  Emily cares about social justice, the role of the newspaper in democracy, and the challenge of keeping bias out of copy.  Along with a 3.80 GPA, Emily is the editor-in-chief of the independent student publication, The Independent Collegian.  She also worked as a freelance reporter for The Putnam County Sentinel and The Lima News as well as a page designer for The Toledo Journal.

University Journalism Scholarship:  Mackenzie Gignac, Ohio State University

Mackenzie GignacMackenzie grew up trying all of the sports: hockey, baseball, soccer, basketball, track, and even played football.  Academically, she is striving to double major in journalism and strategic communications and graduate magna cum laude.  She earned an Ohio State School of Communications scholarship, made the dean’s list, and is a founding member of Ohio State’s Society of Professional Journalists Chapter.  Looking forward towards her career, she hopes to become a sports journalist for ESPN.

Mackenzie has been working with The Lantern, mostly through Lantern TV, almost since her first day at Ohio State.  She reports, shoots, edits and produces video packages and is the main beat writer covering the Ohio State women’s basketball team.  This summer Mackenzie applied for internships for CNN, Big Ten Network, and Columbus’s 10TV.  In her free time, she is a member of other clubs to fulfill her personal passions of community involvement and service.  Her GPA is 3.70.

University Journalism Scholarship:  Laina Yost, Sinclair Community College

Laina YostLaina is majoring in Multimedia Journalism and has been in love with journalism since she did a project on Watergate in high school.  She started as an intern at the Clarion, Sinclair’s student newspaper learning AP writing style, feature and news stories, and skills as an interviewer.  Additionally, she had the opportunity to submit a records request.  Following her internship, she was promoted to managing editor as well as overseeing the responsibilities of advertisers, reporters and the creative department.

Laina is currently completing her sophomore year at Sinclair with a 3.73 GPA and each semester of school has been placed on the dean’s list.  She will begin her junior year at Kent State this fall.  She volunteers at her church and runs her own blog about the media called Logic Not Needed.  In the future, she would like to get involved with print and digital companies.  Her ultimate dream is to work for the Washington Post.  Overall, her main goal is to be the best journalist she can be.

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