BSU journalists win for design, writing, visuals

Ball State student journalists won top awards from the Society of Professional Journalists this weekend for radio reporting, newspaper design, photography and column writing – including one editor’s account of her struggle with cancer.

"Cancer does not pick favorites. It chooses no sides,” wrote Evie Lichtenwalter. “It’s a destructive, unpredictable, warmongering machine that will infiltrate and destroy anything it can.”

Lichtenwalter’s series of Ball State Daily News columns on her treatment, “Prognosis Unknown,” won first place for column writing in Friday’s awards from the SPJ Indiana Professional Chapter.

“One day, I feel fine. The next, I wake up in the middle of the kitchen floor with a throbbing headache,” wrote Lichtenwalter, a news editor for the newspaper.

“I tried to cook some popcorn, but because my red blood cells and white blood cells are so low, all I managed to do was pass out and smash my head into the floor.”

Elsewhere, Jonathan Miksanek of the Daily News took first place for Sports Photography and Photo Illustration.

Breanna Daugherty won the top award for Feature Photography.  Lauren Chapman and Michael Boehnlein won first place for Page One Design and Design Other Than Page One, respectively.

Managing Editor Emma Kate Fittes and the Daily News staff won second place for Spot News Reporting. Ross May took a second for Page One Design; and Miksanek and Taylor Irby won second place for News Photography.

In college radio, Jason Puhr of Indiana Public Radio won first place for Feature Reporting. Safarali Saydshoev of IPR won honorable mention in the same category.

Cameron Ridle, Lisa Ryan and the WCRD News Team won first place in Public Affairs Reporting for their coverage of the Muncie Community Schools' bus referendum. They also received an honorable mention for Best Newscast.

Sports Link, a student production group affiliated with Ball State Athletics, won two first place awards.

Tyler Bradfield and Sean Stewart won top honors for Sports Reporting; and Christopher Kosinski and Brad Dailey won for Videography.

Two Ball State faculty members won first place awards in the Professional Radio division.

Telecommunications Instructor Stan Sollars of WBST-FM and Indiana Public Radio won for Best Radio Newscast. And Journalism Instructor John Strauss won for Best Radio Documentary for a segment on IPR’s “Indiana Weekend” show.