NESPA hosts 66th annual conference
(For details on All-New England Awards, Special Achievement Awards and suggestions from judges, please download the PDF.)
With 46 sessions on the program, students and teachers attended the New England Scholastic Press Association’s 66th annual conference at Boston University’s College of Communication Friday, May 2. The keynote speaker was John Tlumacki, whose pictures of last year’s Marathon are known around the world. Among other session topics were online coverage, news writing, investigative reporting, editorials and columns, sports writing, design, advertising sales, and how to develop literary magazines. Speakers included College of Communication faculty, journalism professionals from the New England region, and high school advisers and staff members. A national leader in yearbook education, Laura Schaub, received an award of professional achievement. Along with the results of the All-New England and Special Achievement contests, there are 66 suggestions from the Board of Judges on how staffs can improve their work.
Photojournalist tells of painful journey
John Tlumacki gives keynote speech
John Tlumacki describes reaching out to individuals recovering from their injuries in last year’s Marathon bombing.
John Tlumacki said his work covering the Marathon was part of his mission as a photojournalist.
He was 50 feet from where the first of two bombs went off near the finish line last spring.
“Within three seconds of the first bomb I ran forward,” he said.
“Everything you learn in your career—in high school, in college, from your parents—you store it, and when it happens, you run forward.”
A member of the Boston Globe team that won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting, Tlumacki is the National Press Photographers Association 2014 photojournalist of the year. His Marathon photos appeared around the world.
Introducing Tlumacki Friday, May 2 in Morse Auditorium as this year’s keynote speaker for the New England Scholastic Press Association conference, William McKeen, journalism department chair at the College of Communication, called him “one of the best photojournalists on the earth.”
Tlumacki said his roots are in high school journalism, having been a yearbook photographer at Bishop Fenwick High School in Peabody. After beginning as an advertising major at the College of Communication, he changed his emphasis to journalism and graduated in 1978. He described his work with Professor Norman Moyes as “one of the best experiences of my life.”
“I made a commitment,” Tlumacki said. “What you’re doing is for others.
“The heart of the work is your heart.”
Fast-forwarding 30 years, he said last year was his 20th at the Globe and his sixth stationed at the Marathon finish line.
“It’s very hectic,” he said about taking pictures of the winners. “You can’t miss that shot.”
Recalling last year and showing pictures he had taken then and since, Tlumacki said the bombs happened within eight seconds of each other.
“I just kept shooting,” he said. “I knew it was a major news story, and it was my responsibility. I took about 200 photos of the bombing. Other photographers weren’t allowed at the finish line. They were locked down in the Copley Hotel.”
During the year since the bombing Tlumacki said, he has reached out to individuals including Sidney Corcoran and her mother Celeste Corcoran, who lost both legs.
“The whole year I’ve made it a priority to get to know these people,” Tlumacki said.
“It was a privilege to be part of their recovery.”
Pictures Tlumacki presented included Celeste Corcoran being fitted with prosthetics and Sidney Corcoran getting ready for her senior prom, which she attended on crutches with her boyfriend.
“You never know as a photographer where your career is going to take you,” Tlumacki said of photojournalism.
“It puts you in a position of responsibility. It’s not an easy journey.”
Laura Schaub wins Award of Professional Recognition
Laura Schaub receives award during ceremonies at the College of Communication Friday, May 2.
The New England Scholastic Press Association presented Laura Schaub with an Award of Professional Recognition at the conference May 2.
This recognition is in honor of her encouragement and assistance to the students and teachers in this region’s scholastic press.
She has helped them to raise their sights and their standards in the practice of school journalism.
Here is the citation:
“This award of special recognition honors Ms. Schaub’s inspiring teaching of members of this association in particular along with her wonderful contributions to journalism education in this country and Canada.
“Actually, the lone star state recently honored Ms. Schaub as one of 75 legends in Texas scholastic journalism.
“Now, it’s our turn.
“Ms. Schaub, the national education director for Lifetouch Yearbooks, has made contributions to the New England Scholastic Press Association that are as instructive and useful as they are generous.
“She began here at NESPA in May, 2003 by giving a fascinating and inspiring keynote speech entitled ‘Making the Visual-Verbal Connection.’ She has subsequently come to Boston University to teach at this conference six times: in 2004, 2007, 2011, 2012, 2013 and this year as well.
“It is certainly not often that someone travels so far—from Norman, Okla., from Denver, Colo., from schools all over the United States and Canada where she happened to be working, in fact— to provide students and teachers here with so much in terms of skills, trends and challenges.
“Ms. Schaub’s generosity to members of the scholastic press in New England in teaching us what we really need to learn has been terrific.
“She really knows what she’s talking about, and she really knows how to teach.
“Her high standards and inspiring words have been reaching and educating journalism students since her 22 years at Charles Page High School in Sand Springs, Okla., as the newspaper, yearbook and magazine adviser. Before that, Ms. Schaub was a student editor and staff member herself.
“Her honors include Oklahoma Journalism Teacher of the Year, the Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Key, the NSPA/JEA Pioneer Award, Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Distinguished Adviser, the Col. Joseph M. Murphy Award from CSPA and The New York Times, the James F. Paschal Award and the Charles R. O’Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching journalism.
“Ms. Schaub also served for two terms as president of the Columbia Scholastic Press Advisers’ Association.
“She chaired CSPA’s Judging Standards and Practices Committee, co-authored and edited Scholastic Yearbook Fundamentals and also served as images editor and contributing writer for CSPA’s Magazine Fundamentals.
“At the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma, Ms. Schaub taught courses in typography, design, desktop publishing and photography.
“Ms. Schaub is now a professor emerita from the University of Oklahoma where she also served as executive director of the nation’s very first school press organization—even older than ours, the Oklahoma Interscholastic Press Association.
“The New England Scholastic Press Association is proud to honor Ms. Laura Schaub.”
For details on All-New England Awards, Special Achievement Awards and suggestions from judges, please download the PDF.
