WPCI celebrated members’ achievements and awarded its scholarships during the annual awards luncheon June 3 at in Rising Sun, Indiana.
Five WPCI members, including Elizabeth Granger, Marion Garmel, Natalie Hoefer, Kendal Miller and Viv Sade, won a total of 10 first place, four second place and two third place writing and photography awards. The first place winners’ work competes at the national level and will be honored at the National Federation of Press Women conference in Birmingham, Alabama, in September.
Bridget Carson received the Kate Milner Rabb award for exceptional service to WPCI for her dedication and hard work as the WPCI Prison Writing Contest director.
Helen Corey received the WPCI Communicator of Achievement Award and will be recognized at the NFPW conference. Corey is an award-winning cookbook author, publisher, television producer, lecturer and educator. She is author of six books celebrating the food and heritage of her ancestral land in the Middle East, including her family’s recipes and stories of the immigrant experience in America.
Seven high school students from Bishop Chatard High School and Carmel High School were honored and received cash awards in the Best of the Best in High School Journalism Contest.
Tom Hayes, a journalism teacher at Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis, was awarded the Louise Eleanor Ross Kleinhenz Memorial Scholarship. The Hortense Myers Memorial scholarships were presented to Kaitlin Billman and Carley Lanich, both juniors at Indiana University in Bloomington.
Longtime member Julie Slaymaker presented the Julie and Gene Slaymaker Public Service to Journalism Award to Tom Gayda, a journalism teacher at North Central High School in Indianapolis.
In addition to awards, the club inducted new officers: Viv Sade, president; Elizabeth Granger, vice president; Marion Garmel, secretary; and Julie Slaymaker, treasurer.
