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Duo win President’s Award; Union Univ. garners 12 honors


NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Leslie Ann Shoemake, a senior at Mississippi State University, and Megan Baumgardner, a junior at Houston Baptist University, are the winners of the 2003 President’s Award for Excellence in Student Journalism.

The awards were presented by SBC Executive Committee President Morris H. Chapman during the Baptist Press Student Journalism Conference in Nashville, Tenn., Oct. 9-11.

The Excellence in Journalism contest received more than 500 entries with 22 schools represented. Schools competed in the overall category for top awards in newspaper, yearbook, photojournalism, World Wide Web and broadcast. Individual students competed in eight categories each of newspaper and yearbook work, and five categories in both black and white and color journalism.

A total of 88 awards were given at the awards banquet Oct. 11 at the Wyndham Union Station Hotel in Nashville.

Union University in Jackson, Tenn., and Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., won first place in the overall newspaper contest. William Carey College in Hattiesburg, Miss., and Baylor University in Waco, Texas, took second place, and the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas, and Mississippi State University in Mississippi State, Miss., won third place.

First place winner in the overall yearbook contest was Blue Mountain College in Blue Mountain, Miss.; second place went to Mary Hardin-Baylor; and third place to North Greenville College in Tigerville, S.C.

North Greenville was the first-place winner in the World Wide Web contest, and Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Ky., was the first-place winner in the overall broadcast contest.

Union won the most awards of any school with a total of 12.

The President’s Award is given to a student who has shown sustained excellence in scholastic journalism, and this year two students qualified for the honor.

Shoemake has served as the editor in chief of The Reflector, the student newspaper at Mississippi State, and has written for The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville. She has also served as a corporate communications intern at LifeWay Christian Resources, where she submitted stories to Baptist Press.

Baumgardner is co-editor of The Ornogah, the yearbook at Houston Baptist, and has written articles for HBU News, the alumni magazine at Houston Baptist. She also has written several poems that have been published online at poetry.com.
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(BP) photos posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo titles: REPRESENTING THEIR DAUGHTER, TOP HONORS and HONORING THE BEST.

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