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NEWS RELEASE

10-16-01

Contacts:
Giles Fowler, Greenlee School, (515) 294-0502
Steve Sullivan, News Service, (515) 294-3720

TWO GREENLEE SCHOOL JUNIORS WIN $1,000 WRITING PRIZES

AMES, Iowa -- Two Iowa State University journalism students will each receive a $1,000 Donald Jackson Prize for excellence in writing, to be presented at a reception Saturday (Oct. 20).

Recipients of this year's Jackson awards are Sara Tennessen, of Lino Lakes, Minn., and Paul Kix, of Hubbard. The two are juniors in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, and staff members of ISU's campus newspaper, the "Iowa State Daily."

The awards are funded by an endowment honoring the late Donald Jackson, a historian, author and editor who graduated from Iowa State's journalism program in 1942. They will be presented during a reception for alumni and friends of the Greenlee School following the homecoming football game on Saturday.

Tennessen, who served a summer internship on the "Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star," is an assistant news editor of the "Iowa State Daily." Of one of her three stories entered in the prize competition, a contest judge wrote: "Sara clearly took full advantage of her internship at the Lincoln Journal Star. The judges felt she did a fine job of handling a large amount of information, including census statistics and interviews with Hispanics and city officials, to create her insightful, in-depth story on Nebraska's growing Hispanic population."

Kix, a senior editor for ISU's Ethos magazine as well as a senior sports reporter for the Daily, entered three sports columns in the contest and was praised for the "energy and spark" of his writing. A judge wrote that a column about ISU Cyclone basketball coach Larry Eustachy's salary was "an entertaining, and, at the same time, insightful take on a high-profile issue," while another column "showed not only a love of sports, but also a love of writing."

Another highlight of Saturday's reception will be the presentation of the school's James W. Schwartz Award to Louis M. Thompson, Jr., a Greenlee alumnus who is president and CEO of the National Investor Relations Institute in Washington, DC. The award is presented annually to honor recipients for "distinguished service to journalism and mass communication."

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