Woman’s Press Club of Indiana honored members and other professionals as well as high school journalists at its annual awards ceremony May 15.
Conducted via Zoom, the event featured presentation of the club’s highest honors and scholarships; acknowledgment of annual contest winners; and announcement of the high school contest winners.
“This celebration always brings together our members from all over the state to meet and greet other professionals,” said WPCI president Viv Sade. “And we always enjoy meeting the state’s top high school journalists, who impress us every year with their fine work.”
The club also installed new officers. Outgoing president Viv Sade led new officers in the oath of office. They are: Natalie Hoefer, president; and Viv Sade and Bridget Carson, co-secretaries. Offices not up for election this year remain the same: Tara Puckey, vice president, and Julie Slaymaker, treasurer.
WPCI awarded its highest honor, the Kate Milner Rabb Award, to Bridget Carson, who directs the WPCI Prison Writing Contest each year. This involves networking with prison officials, finding judges and assigning the more than 100 entries in categories such as essay, poetry and short story.
The club also presented scholarships and grants, a program supported by the WPCI Education Fund. This year, recipients are:
Clarice Scheele, a junior at Hanover College majoring in communications, won the Hortense Myers Scholarship, a $1,000 award for college juniors.
Amy Smelser, WPCI member who directs the club’s high school journalism contest, won the Louise Eleanor Ross Kleinhenz award, a $500 award for mature women to further their skills. Smelser is pursuing a doctorate.
Longtime travel writer Jackie Sheckler Finch won the inaugural Elizabeth and Fred Granger Travel Journalism Scholarship grant, a $500 award. A former newspaper reporter, Finch shifted to travel writing mid-career, earning numerous awards for her books, articles and editing
Amy Lynch, vice president of the Midwest Travel Journalists Association, received the Julie and Gene Slaymaker Public Service to Journalism Award for her efforts to keep the organization active and engaged during the pandemic. She will receive $500.
Professional communications contest awards were announced in March, and attendees who won awards were honored during the Zoom session. Five members’ work won honors in the national contest sponsored by the National Federation of Press Women. Viv Sade, Eunice Trotter, Jo Ellen Myers Sharp, Beth Edwards and Jessica Shrout will learn what they won during the NFPW convention June 11-12.
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