Broadcast student takes first in Hearst contest
Three other students also place in annual competition

By James Laber
J-School Web Reporter

Melanie Overcast (Listen to her award-winning story below)

Amy May

Alex Strickland

Amanda Harris

photos by Will Moss

For the second consecutive year, the University of Montana has a first-place finalist in the radio competition of the Hearst Journalism Awards Program.

Melanie Overcast, a junior in broadcast news, won first place and a $2,000 scholarship, with a matching grant donated to UM’s School of Journalism. She took top prize in a field of 38 entries in the radio features category for a series of stories that aired last fall. Last year, broadcast senior Stan Pillman earned first place in the same category.

In addition to Overcast, three other UM students have placed in this year’s awards cycle.

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program, created in 1960, awards scholarships to students demonstrating excellent performance in college journalism and makes matching grants to the students’ universities.

Students compete in six monthly contests in writing, three in photojournalism, two in radio broadcast and two in television broadcast news. With championship finals in all four divisions, the program offers up to $500,000 in awards.

Two of Overcast’s stories — one about a 20-year-old U.S. Marine from Chinook, Mont., killed by sniper fire in Iraq and another about student credit card debt — aired on UM’s college radio station, KBGA. A third story, about a porn store located across the street from a church, aired on Montana Public Radio, KUFM.

Overcast said the most difficult, but at the same time the most rewarding, story was about the Marine, because he was a friend of hers.

“It was really hard to decide whether or not to do it,” she said. “For a while I just felt I might be intruding on something that I should be respectful of, but I talked to friends about it and they said if anyone should do [the story] it should be someone who knows him, who knows his family and can put that personality to it.

“That is really what made me decide to do the story,” she added. “And in the end it turned out to be a cathartic experience for myself in learning to deal with the loss of someone in such a way.”

(Watch video of Overcast discussing how she reported the story.)

Now eligible for the second round of competition, Overcast must submit two new stories and has a shot at participating in the National Broadcast News Championship in San Francisco this June.

Overcast currently works for KBGA, contributing one feature story a week, and anchoring the news every Tuesday at 5 p.m.

The print program also had two finalists. Amy May, a senior in print journalism, placed fifth in the feature writing category and received a $600 scholarship for a story that appeared in a student-produced magazine about the Unabomber. Alex Strickland, a 2006 graduate, placed in the opinion-writing competition for an editorial that appeared in the Kaimin.

“One of my professors entered me in the program,” said May. “I didn’t even know I was entered and Dean Brown came up to me in the hall of the J-School and said ‘Congratulations.’ I had no idea what he was talking about and found out from him.”

For her article, May traveled to Lincoln, Mont., five times to interview Sherri Wood, a local librarian who befriended Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Her story focused on the broken trust Wood experienced during the ordeal, from her neighbors to an undercover FBI agent who posed as an engineer, to Kaczynski himself.

May said Wood had given only a few interviews to major publications, such as Time Magazine and the American Library Association Review, and was apprehensive to do an interview because the media had previously broken her trust.

“She finally agreed to an interview after I told her it was for a grade in a class,” she added.

May is finishing her final semester and will graduate this spring. Freelance journalism is a possibility she will consider upon graduating, she said.

Strickland, former editor of the Montana Kaimin, placed 16th out of 93 participants in editorial writing for a piece he wrote last March.

Strickland’s editorial focused on the ethical quandary surrounding former UM Vice President of Research and Development T. Lloyd Chestnut’s involvement with the Inland Northwest Space Alliance.

“It was fun working on the INSA story,” said Strickland. “It was great to work with all the reporters, uncovering the story.  It felt like the big time, not just a normal school newspaper story.”

Strickland graduated after completing an internship for the Great Falls Tribune last summer.  He currently works for UM in University Relations.

Amanda Harris, a junior in broadcast news, placed 17th in the radio competition.  Her pieces were about music as a college major, squirrels on campus, and the town of Opportunity, Mont.

“There were large amounts of waste being dumped near Opportunity,” she said. The waste came from leftovers of the Butte mining days.  The Opportunity story was her most compelling, Harris said.

Harris, who grew up in nearby Anaconda, said that citizens of Opportunity were concerned about dust blowing off the toxic waste dumps and damaging their health.

Harris also works for KBGA as a reporter and anchor.

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