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Radio-TV-film students at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh are winning accolades for their student productions and were recently honored at three major competitions.

At the Broadcast Education Association’s (BEA) annual Festival of Media Arts in Las Vegas, Callie Mills won first place in the air personality category for a sample from a jazz program she hosted at WRST-FM. As a participant in the RTF Professional Internship program, Mills had honed her announcing skills as a jazz DJ with JazzRadio World in Berlin, Germany.

The UWO RTF program has now won seven BEA first place awards. Also in attendance was Director of TV Services Justine Stokes who presented on creating gender equity in student media operations in the BEA Gender Division. Stokes also attended the NAB Show, the world’s largest media conference and expo featuring more than 90,000 media and entertainment professionals from over 150 countries.

Mills also was honored at the National Broadcasting Society’s 48th annual National Undergraduate Student Electronic Media Competition in Universal City, Calif. She won the Grand Prize in the Spec Script category with a script for “That ‘70s Show,” called “8-Ball Tell-All.” UWO student Anthony Bushner took the Honorable Mention award in this category for an episode of “30 Rock” called “March Madness.”

UWO won another NBS grand prize in the Drama Script category for Kevin Heyer’s script “Cinema Verite.” With these awards, UWO has now won 59 major national honors for scriptwriting.

Other UWO works took Honorable Mention awards from NBS:

  • Audio Sports Program: B.J. DeGroot, Bryan Scholz and Christopher Mueller, won for their pregame show of the NCAA Men’s Soccer National Semifinal when UW Oshkosh faced Messiah College in San Antonio. DeGroot is WRST’s sports director, Scholz is WRST’s station manager and Mueller is a former WRST station manager and sports director. Mueller was just hired by the radio broadcast division of the Tampa Bay Rays.
  • Audio Sports Play-by-Play: Scholz, Mueller and DeGroot won for their call of the above soccer contest and Tyler Thrune, Phil Rothmann and DeGroot were honored for a broadcast of men’s basketball between UW Oshkosh and UW-Superior. Thrune is WRST’s program director and Rothmann was the station’s assistant sports director. Rothmann now works for all-sports radio station WSCO-AM in Appleton.
  • Audio Music/Entertainment Program: Elisabeth Schettle and Jessica Westlund won for their weekly WRST program “La Mezcla” (The Mix), which is presented entirely in Spanish. Schettle and Westlund are double majors in RTF and Spanish.
  • Video Sports Program: Scholz, Brian Urbanek and Ian Segovia won for their Titan TV Sports video production “Titan Ticker.”
  • Music Video: J.P. Russell won for his video “Reign.”

UWO radio productions were also honored by the six-state Northwest Broadcast News Association at their annual convention in Bloomington, Minn. The awards are named for and honor Eric Sevaried, the longtime CBS News reporter and commentator.

In the student category for Radio Soft Feature, first place went to Mallory Jacobson for her feature entitled “Kicking the Habit,” which chronicled her effort to stop smoking. The Award of Merit in this category went to Erik Schmeling for his feature “Cheese Days,” an audio feature on a cheese festival in Monroe. Both reports were produced for the Advanced Radio Production class. WRST also took home a first place award in the category for Radio Sportscast/Program. The DeGroot, Scholz and Mueller soccer pregame effort mentioned above was chosen as the winner.

NBNA Awards of Merit were given in the following categories:

  • Radio Sports Play-by-Play: B.J. DeGroot, Bryan Scholz and Christopher Mueller for the NCAA Men’s Soccer National Semifina,l UW Oshkosh vs. Messiah College.
  • Radio Sports Reporting: DeGroot for a live radio interview he conducted with ex-Titan and former pro baseball player Jerrod Washburn.
  • Radio Talk/Public Affairs: Bryan Scholz and Joe Platt for their weekly WRST program on food and good eating called “Cheeseburgers and Paradise.” The episode submitted was on delicatessens and featured an interview with a Brown Deer deli owner who had worked at the same place for 60 years.

In NBNA’s professional categories, UWO Director of Radio Services Randall Davidson was honored in two categories for a radio feature he produced called “Rare Mileage.” It told of the phenomenon of some enthusiasts who “collect” sections of railroad they have ridden over and often seek out detoured passenger trains to add the lines to their maps. For the piece, Davidson traveled on a detoured train between Chicago and St. Louis and interviewed one such enthusiast. The work took First Place in the Audio category and an Award of Merit for Broadcast Writing.

Randall Davidson, radio services, submitted this announcement. Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to contribute calendar items, campus announcements and other good news to UW Oshkosh Today.