Posted by Bud on November 12, 2010 at 09:52:25:
This weekend is the annual John Drury High School Radio Awards, named after the beloved Chicago television news anchor, John Drury.
These high school radio awards were created in 2002 to recognize excellence in high school radio broadcasting. The awards are a national competition put together and hosted by Naperville's North Central College and their own radio station WONC-FM. Awards are given out to the winning schools as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place awards. 1st place winning students are also offered a $1,000 scholarship to attend North Central College.
Many local high schools are among the nominees for awards again this year. The local nominees include:
Best Newscast
-- Mike Nauheimer (Lyons Township, LaGrange, IL: WLTL) CNN Newscast
Best News Feature Story
-- Tom Moran (Lyons Township, LaGrange, IL: WLTL) Food Crisis
-- Trent Houdek (Glenbrook South, Glenview, IL: WGBK) Brookfield Zoo
-- Ryan Stern (Glenbrook North, Northbrook, IL: WGBK) Foodstock - This Just In
Best Public Affairs Program
-- Tom Moran, Alex Holder (Lyons Township, LaGrange, IL: WLTL) The News Show
-- Derek Meleh (Glenbrook South, Glenview, IL: WGBK) Alex Herrmann's Picks: Special Report
Best Promo
-- Mike Nauheimer, Griffin Fillipitch (Lyons Township, LaGrange, IL: WLTL) Wonderful #1
Best Sports Play-By-Play
-- Shane Gustafson (Downers Grove North, Downers Grove, IL: WDGC) DGN vs. Glenbard West 10/16/09 II
Best Sportstalk Program
-- Corey Stolzenbach, Allan Rodriguez (Reavis, Burbank, IL: WRHS) Corey's Sports Hour - January 11, 2010
Best PSA
-- Tom Moran (Lyons Township, LaGrange, IL: WLTL) LT Speak-Up Line
-- Eareen Yambow (Downers Grove North, Downers Grove, IL: WDGC) Contest
-- Jared Klasfeld (Glenbrook North, Northbrook, IL: WGBK) PSA Jared Klasfeld
Best Radio Drama - Original
-- Mike Nauheimer, Griffin Fillipitch (Lyons Township, LaGrange, IL: WLTL) Best Of Walk The Plank - Part I
-- Mike Nauheimer, Griffin Fillipitch (Lyons Township, LaGrange, IL: WLTL) Best Of Walk The Plank - Part II
-- Rebecca Herman, Rizamae Enriquez, Kim Kreil, Derek Whitehouse, Andy Sutton, Ian Tupas, John Hewelt, Jon Sims, Richard Shepard, Matt Swiec (Reavis, Burbank, IL: WRHS) The Never Ending Genre - Part II
Best Radio Drama - Adaptation
-- Mike Nauheimer, Griffin Fillipitch (Lyons Township, LaGrange, IL: WLTL) Bailey School Kids - Episode I
Awards for Best Radio Station Advisor and Best High School Station will be handed out as well. Those will go to those who win the most awards this year, judged on a points system.
Awards are presented to radio stations belonging to academic high schools and licensed as an AM or FM station with the FCC. High schools from across the country submitted entries the fist half of this year. From those entries, the nominees were selected in September. Radio professionals then listened to all of the nominees and selected the winners, which will be revealed this weekend.
Jon Madormo, a former WGN-AM producer who is now the Assistant Professor of Broadcast Communications at North Central College and the General Manager of WONC-FM, said that the awards were named after the award-winning John Drury because they wanted "not just a professional journalist, but whose name would invoke the highest standards of character and integrity."
John Drury personally presented the awards to the winning schools for the fist two years the awards were in existence. Unfortunately, as John Drury's ALS worsened, he was no longer able to participate after that. Drury passed away at the age of 80 in November 2007 from complications of ALS.
With John Drury unable to participate, other Chicago journalists have since filled in as the awards presenter, including Alan Krashesky, Phil Schwarz, Chuck Goudie and Stacey Baca. This year's presentation will be emceed by WLS-TV's weekend anchor and reporter Ben Bradley.
The 2010 John Drury High School Radio Awards will take place at a two-hour luncheon held at North Central College (30 North Brainard St., Naperville, IL) on Saturday, November 13th, starting at Noon.
More information on these awards can be found: