During the first semester of the 2018-2019 school year, three KEMPA scholarship recipients from last year successfully began their college careers as journalism majors and received their scholarship checks to help them on their way. Alexandra Landman is a freshman at the University of Dayton, and Katrina Troy and Kaylee Schreiner are both studying in the school of journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Alexandra Landman graduated from Huntley H.S. in Illinois and began her college career as a Communication Management major at the University of Dayton in Ohio. Her first course in her major focused on oral communication and presentation. The objective of the course was to learn how to increase civil dialogue among members of different groups, effectively advocate and respond to different positions, and to confidently communicate ideas and opinions. She is also taking an interdisciplinary class that fulfills her requirements for English, Religion, Philosophy, and Advanced History. This class has enhanced her skills as a writer as she has been exposed to many different writing styles.

Outside of her coursework, Alex is a sports writer for the Flyer News, Dayton’s student run newspaper and website. She covers volleyball and basketball where she sits behind the bench or in the press box with all of the other local professional sports reporters following Dayton’s teams in the Division I Atlantic- 10 conference. This has been an excellent opportunity for her and made her more excited to pursue journalism and storytelling as a career.

Katrina Troy also graduated from Huntley H.S. and studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia. In Columbia’s journalism school, first year freshmen don’t pick up a pen and paper until they take classes in Career Exploration of journalism and Principles of American journalism. In the Career Exploration class, Katrina was able to listen to a myriad of media professionals including; reporters , photographers, advertisers, strategic communicators, broadcasters, and many more as she decided which career path she wanted to pursue. She was impressed by the passion of the media professionals. More importantly, she learned in these classes “that our task as journalists is to write the truth, but not before we open our ears to listen for the truth before we even pick up a pen.

Kaylee Schreiner graduated from Antioch H.S. in Illinois, and is also studying at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She enjoyed the Career Exploration class, and it too was an eye opener to her as way to find a career path in journalism. What really inspired her was an opportunity to go to a sports focused event called “Get in the Game”. The panel for this event was made up of professionals in different fields of sports journalism. This event allowed her to make contact with the Assistant Editor-in-Chief of the student run publication The Maneater, and from this she was able to apply for a position as a sports desk beat writer. At this same event she was also able to speak with the president of Mizzou’s chapter of the Association for Women in Sports Media. While listening to the president, she learned that she had just finished an internship with the Colorado Rockies baseball team over the past summer. This inspired Kaylee as she acknowledged that she had a real interest in writing for and about Major League Baseball.

Congratulations to all of our scholarship recipients as they pursue their dreams of being journalists during this interesting and challenging era in the history of American media.