Philip Merrill College of Journalism | University of Maryland

Merrill College Students Win Hearst Awards

For Immediate Release Dec. 14, 2001

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Merrill College students Andy Symonds and Chris Frates were honored for feature writing in November in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program, making Maryland one of only three schools to have its two entrants finish in the top 20 in the national competition.

More than 110 students competed in the feature-writing competition, the first of six news-writing competitions sponsored by Hearst during the academic year. Symonds finished 14th for his story on a student whose firefighter father died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, and Frates finished 17th for his profile of Boston's "sandhogs," the construction workers who toil on massive tunneling projects under the city.

Hearst names 20 winners in its monthly competitions. More than 100 accredited journalism schools compete in the contests, which include scholarships for the top 10 finishers every month and culminate at the end of the year in a national competition of monthly winners.

Maryland, Northwestern and Kansas were the only schools to have both students – schools are limited to two entrants – finish in the top 20 in the feature writing competition.

Symonds' story, which appeared in The Diamondback, profiled Paddy O'Keefe, a veteran firefighter with Rescue One Company in Manhattan whose daughter is a student at College Park.

O'Keefe was working overtime on Sept. 11, his first day back from a six-week vacation, when the call came in to his department that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center Towers. He was inside on the 40th floor of Tower Two when it collapsed, but only after he doubtless saved many other lives.

Frates was sitting at home watching a Discovery Channel program on tunnel construction when he got the idea of pitching a story about Boston's sandhogs to his editors at the Boston Globe, where he worked as an intern over the summer. They bit – Boston is home to the Big Dig, America's most expensive tunnel project – and Frates was soon 300 feet underground, sporting rain gear and a hardhat, interviewing sandhogs in noisy, wet and dark confines about their dirty, dangerous work and their pride in it.

Hearst competitions are open to full-time undergraduate journalism students only, and this year will award more than $400,000 in scholarships and grants to winning schools and students. Upcoming Hearst competitions include editorial writing in early December; in-depth writing in late December; sports writing in late January; personality/profile writing in late February; and spot news in early April. The national championship competition will be held in early June in San Francisco.

For more information contact: Chris Callahan, (301) 405-2432