What’s New with Grady Alumni

• Margaret Kreger (ABJ ’10), assistant news director, is part of a team at WSLS10 in Roanoke VA, that has been awarded two 2020 Capital Emmy Awards, three 2020 RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Awards and a 2019 Virginia AP Broadcaster Award.
• A number of alumni were honored by with a 2020 Southeast Emmy including; Jennifer Bellamy (ABJ ’08), Dominic Brown (ABJ ’05), Valerie Burgos (ABJ ’16), Thomas Goodhew (ABJ ’05), Samuel Larsen (ABJ ’14), Adam Murphy (ABJ ’97), Matt Pearl (MFA ’19) and Maddie Ray (AB ’19).
• Rosemary Scott (AB ’20) is part of a Georgia Public Broadcasting  team that produced a podcast series titled: “Shots in the Back: Exhuming the 1970 Augusta Riot.”
• Vivian Greentree (ABJ ’00) was featured in this UGA Alumni Association article highlighting her dedication to service through her employer and alma mater.
• Congratulations to Keysha Lee (ABJ ’97) on her new book, “Keysha Lee Presents: Filmmaking 101.” (Sept. 3, 2020)
• Congratulations to Amie Marsh Jones (MMC ’03, PhD ’19) on winning the Blanchard Dissertation Prize awarded by the American Journalism Historians Association. Jones works as an Asst. Dir. of Student Services at the UGA Graduate School. (Sept. 2, 2020)
• Congratulations to Ryan Lavner (ABJ ’09) on winning a Sports Emmy for Outstanding Short Feature for his work reporting on “Life Without Katie: The Jason Eloe Story.” Lavner is a senior writer for the Golf Channel. (Aug. 12, 2020)
• Cal Massey (ABJ ’78) was named the winner of the 2020 Kenneth Patchen Award for innovative novel by the Journal of Experimental Fiction. Massey wrote “Own Little Worlds” after a 22 year career at the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
• We send our condolences to the family of Jackson Smith (ABJ ’15). He died after a short illness in December 2019. He had been working as a teacher in South Korea.
• The WNET group named Eugenia Harvey (ABJ ’82) to chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer.
• Taronda Gibbons (MA ’11) was featured on VoyageATL in May 2020.
• Michael Trujillo (ABJ ’05, AB ’05) has been named the Latin American Association’s Volunteer of the Year
• Amber Roessner (MA ’06, PhD ’10) published a new book, “Jimmy Carter and the Birth of the Marathon Media Campaign.” See this feature from the Athens Banner-Herald.
• Congratulations to Lindsey Cook (ABJ ’14) on the publication of her first book, “How to Bury Your Brother.”
• WJJC radio in Commerce, Ga. is rebranding their station as “Whisperin’ 95.1” to honor country music legend Bill Anderson (ABJ ’59).
• Mary Jean Land (MA ’82, PhD ’99) is retiring from Georgia College and State University after 35 years.
• Condolences to the family of Jim Martin (ABJ ’52) who died at age 91. He was the former general manager at WDUN AM-FM in Gainesville, Ga.
• Mollie Simon (AB ’18) has been named a 2020-21 Scripps Howard Fellow. 
• Grady College sends condolences to the family of Judge Nancy Smith Stephenson (ABJ ’78, JD ’81) who died at age 61 in Albany, Ga. She was the Dougherty County Probate Court Judge.
• Marcella Genut (AB ’18) is now the social media and communications assistant for Extra Special People (ESP), an Athens-area organization that serves children and young adults with developmental disabilities.
• Tracy Page (ABJ ’88), a fine art photographer, is one of 25 global ambassadors for ZEISS, an internationally leading technology enterprise operating in the fields of optics and optoelectronics.
• Condolences to the family of Ed Ingles (ABJ ’58) on his death. Ingles was a WCBS-AM sports director and Jets broadcaster, and was a 2012 Grady College Lifetime Achievement Award winner.
• Christine Sperow (ABJ ’98) will be joining Fox 5 as anchor of the channel’s new Fox 5 News at 4:30 p.m. broadcast.
• Guy Seabrook (ABJ ’69) has written a novel about his experiences as a pilot in Vietnam. “In the Nam” is available on Amazon.
• Kelly Jordan (ABJ ’07) is a director of strategic communications at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health and a children’s book author. Her first book, “The Little Blue Cottage,” will publish in May 2020.
• Amber Thomas Wallin (ABJ ’13) has been selected as a Bob Curry Fellow at Second City Television in Chicago.  The Bob Curry Fellowship is ten-week master program for qualifying actors and improvisers from diverse multicultural backgrounds to train and study at The Second City Chicago.
• Donald Sylvester (ABJ ’75) won the Oscar for Sound Editing on “Ford v Ferrari” at the 92th Academy Awards.
• Tanya Sichynsky (ABJ ’14), a newsletter editor at The Washington Post, received an Association of Food Journalists 2019 award for best column.
• Kevin Wuzzardo (ABJ ’00) is now Managing Editor at FOX13 in Memphis. Kevin spent the previous 13 years at WWAY-TV in Wilmington, NC, including the last five as News Director.
• Congratulations to Mikey Mooney (ABJ ’12, MA ’13) on being named one of PRNEWS’ Rising PR Stars 30 & Under for 2019. Mikey serves as one of the vice presidents at Poston Communications.
• Congratulations to the following Grady alumni on receiving special recognition from the PRSA Atlanta chapter at their annual awards ceremony:
  • Louise Mulherin (MMC ’89) received the Luminary Star Award
  • Jamie Cwalinski (ABJ ’07) received the Shining Star Award
  • Alyssa Thys (MA ’15) received the Rising Star Award
• Doug Wieder (ABJ ’95) has been named the President and General Manager at WVEC in Norfolk, Virginia.
• We share our condolences with family of Bill Bates (ABJ ’49). He died at age 92. Learn more about Bates’ career and life at his online obituary. 
• Grady expresses heartfelt condolences to the family of Ray Jenkins (ABJ ’50) on his death. Read about Jenkins’ legacy here: “Ray Jenkins, former Evening Sun editorial page editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, dies”
• Kali Bailey (ABJ ’12) was recently profiled in a piece from the Albany Herald about her filmmaking career.
• Thomas R. Hagley, Jr., (MMC ’92) published an article, “Cultivating Community Schools,” in the August 2019 issue of School Administrator magazine. Hagley’s work as chief of staff and chief communications officer with Vancouver (Wash.) Public Schools also was spotlighted in a new book: Broader, Bolder, Better: How Schools and Communities Help Students Overcome the Disadvantages of Poverty (Harvard Education Press, 2019).
• Congratulations to 1Lt Rachael J. Mercer, CAP, (ABJ ’99) on being named the 2019 National Public Affairs Officer of the Year for Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary of the United States Air Force. Lt Mercer received her award at the 2019 National Conference in Baltimore, Md., earlier August.

  

  Lt. Mercer oversees the Public Affairs for the South Carolina Wing of Civil Air Patrol and was published in the 2019 Civil Air Patrol Report to Congress and has been published in numerous Volunteer magazines, the Official Magazine of Civil Air Patrol. Lt Mercer has been a freelance writer since 2001, after working for two years as the Communications Assistant at the Automotive Service Association (ASA), a non-profit based in Bedford, Texas.
• Congratulations to Ken Woo (ABJ ’78) on his induction into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame class of 2019. The Hall of Fame honors those who have had an impact on sports television and the way it is produced. Woo will be honored at the 13^th annual induction ceremony in New York City in December.

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Want to share some alumni-related news? Contact Diane Murray, director of Alumni Relations and Outreach, at murrayd@uga.edu.