Eight students and one faculty member at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will share in $20,000 in scholarships and awards at an April 27 dinner at the Omaha Press Club, officials of the club’s foundation announced.
William Bauer will be presented with the Paul N. Williams Scholarship, which honors a newspaperman who shared in the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a weekly newspaper, the Sun Newspapers of Omaha. Bauer, a rising sophomore, is majoring in broadcasting and sports media and communications. The son of Marc and Lisa Bauer of Hawley, Minnesota, he helps cover Cornhusker athletics for campus radio station KRNU and recently started an internship in the newsroom of Lincoln radio station KFOR, assisting with an afternoon radio show. He has also broadened his experience by working for the Daily Nebraskan, calling games for BTN Student U and co-hosting a sports podcast.
Brian Bulin will take home a John F. Davis Scholarship, honoring the former chairman of the board of First National Bank who was instrumental in establishing the Omaha Press Club atop the bank’s headquarters. Bulin, a rising junior, is majoring in advertising and public relations and minoring in English and Czech. He has combined his interest in writing and Czech by writing and taking pictures for University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Czech Komensky Club and for the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences. He also enjoys writing short stories, traveling, blogging and scuba diving. Bulin, who hails from Lincoln, Nebraska, is a son of Dave and Vickey Bulin.
Megan Crain, another John F. Davis Scholarship winner, is a rising junior majoring in journalism and sports communications. She has consistently landed on University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s dean’s list. From Springfield, Illinois, Crain has worked as a correspondent for her hometown State Journal-Register newspaper. She has served as a digital intern for the University of Nebraska–Lincoln athletic department, making social media posts for the Cornhusker football team and women’s basketball team. She is also recruitment chair for Phi Sigma Pi honors fraternity and studied abroad last summer in France. Her parents are Joe and Ann Crain.
Cassandra Kostal will be presented with the Jim Denney “Good News” Scholarship, memorializing a 38-year Omaha World-Herald reporter whose feature work often focused on Cornhusker football and Nebraska history. A journalism and broadcasting double major and rising sophomore, Kostal has made a big mark early in her career at University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She has written about the “Coats for Clinton” campaign that helped clothe needy children, zookeeping, how graduates of the College of Business see enormous potential in expansion of the program, and the challenges of dealing with claims of political hostility on campus. She serves as a copy editor and a engagement editor at the Daily Nebraskan. The Gretna resident, a daughter of Jeff and Michelle Kostal, holds a Regents Scholarship and is part of the University Honors Program.
Ryan Pawloski will be given a Panko-Roberts/President’s Memorial Scholarship, presented in memory of Omaha World-Herald reporter Walter Panko and KMTV News Director Jim Roberts, along with all past presidents of the Omaha Press Club and the Omaha Press Club Foundation. A rising junior, Pawloski is majoring in sports media communication and broadcasting. He has worked for his hometown Hastings Tribune newspaper, where he wrote about girls soccer, and the Daily Nebraskan, where women’s tennis was on his beat. He is a son of Doug and Michelle Pawloski.
Kristopher Scott will pocket the Mark Gautier Intern Award, memorializing a longtime news director at KMTV in Omaha. Scott, a senior from Omaha, in the summer of 2017 served as a broadcast intern at KETV in Omaha. A broadcasting major, Scott also has spent time on the air for campus radio station KRNU. He also has been active in numerous campus organizations, including the Afrikan People’s Union, OASIS, the Executive Council of Multicultural Organizations and the Inter-Tribal Exchange. His parents are Lesley Fields and Brian Scott.
Baylee M. Vrtiska will collect a Nebraska Broadcasters Association Award. The rising senior is double-majoring in broadcasting and journalism with concentrations in communications, history and psychology. From Falls City, Nebraska, Vrtiska has extensive internship experience with News Channel Nebraska, managing its Falls City bureau, as well as with KHUB radio in Fremont, the athletic department’s HuskerVision studio and the Hope Venture, a Lincoln nonprofit. She has a 3.84 GPA and was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa, a campus honorary society. Upon graduation, she plans to pursue a career in broadcast journalism. Her parents are Kim and Kris Vrtiska.
Emma Young will collect a Stan Bond Scholarship, which honors a KETV field engineer who pioneered live broadcasting from remote locations and served as a president of the Omaha Press Club. Young, a rising junior and journalism major, has consistently made the campus dean’s list. She is currently a copy editor at the Daily Nebraskan, is a member of the American Copy Editors Society and has also served as a color commentator for Husker women’s basketball for BTN Student U. Not content just to broadcast the sport, she also is leading efforts to create a women’s club basketball team on campus. She hails from South Sioux City, Nebraska, and is a daughter of Paul and Tammy Young.
Along with the students, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Associate Professor Michelle Carr Hassler will be presented with $1,000 from the John Savage Visual Communications Scholarship. The money will be used to help embed students in Lincoln’s poorest neighborhoods to develop stories about and relevant to residents. Using photography, the CoJMC students will document the day-to-day life of residents, in partnership with middle-school and high school students.
In addition, the Omaha Press Club will bestow its annual Journalism Educator Award on Carol Zuegner, Ph.D., a Creighton University associate professor who teaches social media, entrepreneurial media, international mass communication, and information concepts and practices. It will also present its Career Achievement Award to Joanne Stewart, who recently retired as assistant managing editor of the Omaha World-Herald, where she started her journalism career in 1973 as a copy messenger.
Students from Creighton and the University of Nebraska Omaha will also collect scholarships and awards at the press club dinner.
