Omaha Press Club Foundation named five undergraduates and one graduate student from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to share $10,500 in scholarships.
The awards, ranging from $1,000 to $2,500, will be given to undergrads Dennis Bukowski, Lucy Fitzpatrick, Amanda Hinrichs, Kay Kemmet and Emily Nohr, as well as graduate student John A. Baker. The awards will be presented at a dinner at the Omaha Press Club on April 29 where the OPC Foundation will honor former CoJMC news-editorial department chairman Alfred "Bud" Pagel with its Journalism Educator Award and longtime sportscaster Jack Payne with its Career Achievement Award.
Five students from Creighton University and six from the University of Nebraska at Omaha will also collect scholarship awards.
Among the UNL students, Bukowski was chosen for a $1,500 Stan Bond Scholarship. An advertising major from Omaha, he was selected to be a member of the 2011 UNL National Student Advertising Competition team, Bukowski is interested mainly in graphic design, particularly as applied to computer arts and typography.
Fitzpatrick, from Saint Joseph, Mo., will receive a $2,500 John F. Davis Scholarship. Majoring in broadcast journalism with an emphasis in production, Fitzpatrick is minoring in English. She has interned at KQ2 News in Saint Joseph and at MTV in New York City.
Hinrichs, who will also receive a $2,500 John F. Davis Scholarship, comes from Kearney, Neb. An advertising and public relations major, with minors in English and communication, Hinrichs is a member of the interactive and social media department at public relations firm Bailey Lauerman in Lincoln. Past co-director of Web and social media development for the Public Relations Student Society of America, she has volunteered at United Way, Lancaster County Women in Philanthropy and the People's City Mission.
Kemmet will receive a $1,500 Paul N. Williams Scholarship. Kemmet, from Bismarck, N.D., is double-majoring in journalism and Spanish. She has interned at the Bismarck Tribune and is slated to intern this summer at the Grand Island Independent. Kemmet's awards include the Hearst Scholarship for excellence in depth reporting and the Ted Kooser Award for First Year Writing.
Nohr, of Crofton, Neb., will receive a $1,500 Panko-Roberts/President's Memorial Scholarship. A journalism major, Nohr has freelanced for the Norfolk Daily News, interned at the Yankton, (S.D.) Daily Press & Dakotan, worked as an Omaha World-Herald reporting fellow and served as a reporter for the Nebraska News Service. This summer, she is slated to intern at the World-Herald.
Graduate student Baker, a native of Lake Charles, La., will receive the $1,000 Sen. Edward Zorinsky Memorial Scholarship. A graduate of McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Baker expects to complete his master's degree studies at UNL this year. An executive in various capacities with Sears Holdings in Louisiana and Washington D.C., from 2001 to 2006, Baker also worked as an assistant recreational sports director at McNeese State. He is interested in writing about religious issues and, for a time, worked at the Interstate Baptist Assn. in Portland, Ore., as a campus director. Baker plans to work as a journalist and teacher.
The April 29 festivities at the Omaha Press Club will begin at 5 p.m. with meetings between the students and honorees Pagel and Payne. Cocktails will be followed by dinner at 6:30 p.m. and the awards program. Anyone interested in attending should reserve seats by calling the club at 402-345-8008.
The Omaha Press Club Foundation will present the Journalism Educator Award to Alfred "Bud" Pagel during the annual scholarship ceremony on Friday, April 29. Pagel is a third generation Nebraska journalist and an emeritus professor at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln.
According to a profile published in a 1994 issue of J Alumni News, Will Norton Jr., journalism college dean, credited the tireless work by Pagel to improve the J school's internship and placement program at a time when the program was down.
Pagel's colleague, journalism professor Richard Streckfuss, agreed saying "The internship program is all [Pagel's] doing. It was turned around by him, by his willingness to work hard and call on people in the field."
Pagel himself said the internship and placement program was his greatest accomplishment at the college.
Pagel, who began his journalism career at age 12 in the back shop of his family's newspaper, the Neligh Leader, returned after graduation and a brief stint in the Army in 1957 to take over as publisher and owner of the paper founded in 1885 by his grandfather, C.J. Best.
Pagel sold the Leader in 1963 to work at various dailies, including The Norfolk Daily News, The Lincoln Journal, The Omaha World-Herald and The Miami Herald. He joined the faculty at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications in 1982 as a Gannett professional lecturer. He went on to serve as the news-editorial department chair from 1990 to 1995. Pagel continued to teach classes for 10 years following his retirement in 1997.
During his six decades in the profession, Pagel has received more than 30 writing and teaching awards. He was inducted into the Nebraska Press Association Hall of Fame in 2006. Pagel and his mother, Ruth Best Pagel, are the first mother-son members of the NPA Hall of Fame.
Pagel earned a bachelor's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1956. In 1988, he received a Master of Science from UNL.