KEMPA Journalism

KEMPA Journalism

KEMPA Journalism

Other Awards

From 2001 until 2014, KEMPA recognized great feature writing with the Tom Gebhardt Award. This award has now been replaced with the new individual contests.

Tom Gebhardt Award

The Gebhardt Award is given to a student who shows excellence in feature writing. It was presented in memory of longtime KEMPA instructor Tom Gebhardt.

The award is presented at the KEMPA annual meeting during the Fall Scholastic Journalism Conference.

The 2014 Tom Gebhardt Award winner was Tanvi Kumar.

Tanvi Kumar, Fond du Lac High School, wrote the winning feature story, The Rape Joke, which exposed the school’s culture of making light of rape. She wrote the article because it was a topic that students needed to know about and do something about. In an interview with the SPLC, Kumar said, “We are so saturated in a society that tolerates and even condones objectification of women and sexualizes them to be less than human beings. I think a lot of that … contributes to rape jokes and rape culture, and it’s not something that I could see going under the radar anymore.” Kumar interviewed three courageous students who were rape survivors and willing to tell their stories of sexual abuse. The article appeared in the Cardinal Columns newsmagazine. The article can be found Here: The Rape Joke.

2001 Holly Leach, Oshkosh North High School (WI)
2002 Dan Causier, Wauwatosa East High School (WI)
2003 Ida Assefa, Wauwatosa East High School (WI)
2004 Karolina Wroblewska, Lake Zurich High School (IL)
2005 Anna Joranger, Wauwatosa East High School (WI)
2006 Nelson Sederstrom, Shawano High School (WI)
2008 Kayleigh Dunn, Lake Zurich High School (IL)
2009 Abbie Reetz, D.C. Everest H.S. (WI)
2010 Alexandria Johnson, Rolling Meadows H.S. (IL)
2011 Krystyna Keema, Lake Zurich H.S. (IL)
2012 Gabrielle Abesamis, Niles West High School (IL)
2013 Ivana Kosir, Niles West High School (IL)
2014 Tanvi Kumar, Fond du Lac High School (WI)

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