Two Student Journalists Honored with HSPA Awards

December 12, 2002

December 12, 2002, Greencastle, Ind. - Two DePauw University students who write for The DePauw have been honored for excellence in journalism by the Hoosier State Press Association. Junior Brandon Sokol's story, "Fire destroys University's oldest dorm," won the first place award for news in the college division, which includes all Indiana colleges, big and small.

In the sports division, DePauw junior John Groth was awarded a third place prize for his article, "Last-second loss leaves Wabash with Monon Bell," which was published in The DePauw after last year's thrilling football game at Blackstock Stadium.

In September, The DePauw, the completely independent, student staffed and managed newspaper on the DePauw University campus, received a National Mark of Excellence Award for outstanding student journalism from The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). Last spring, The DePauw was named Indiana's best college newspaper for the eighth time in the past nine years by the Indiana Collegiate Press Association, one of 27 awards the publication received.

Indiana's oldest college newspaper, founded in 1852 as Asbury Notes, The DePauw has a rich tradition of being the springboard for the careers of many of America's great journalists. Alumni of the student newspaper include "business journalist of the century" Bernard Kilgore and Kenneth C. Hogate of the Wall Street Journal, Eugene C. and Eugene S. Pulliam of the Indianapolis Star and Central Newspapers chain, Donald Maxwell, former editor of the Chicago Tribune, Robert Giles, curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and former editor of the Detroit News, John McWethy, ABC News Senior Pentagon Correspondent (seen at left) and James B. Stewart, Pulitzer Prize-winning former front page editor of the Wall Street Journal, best-selling author of Den of Thieves, Blood Sport and the newly-released Heart of a Soldier: A Story of Love, Heroism, and September 11th (read more here), and currently editor-at-large of SmartMoney magazine.

Incorporated in 1933, the Hoosier State Press Association is a trade organization representing Indiana's daily, semi-weekly, tri-weekly and weekly newspapers of general, paid circulation. Non-political and non-sectarian, HSPA is the only organization totally dedicated to the protection and advancement of the newspaper industry in Indiana.

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