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The Northwest Broadcast News Association, a six-state regional journalism organization, has honored WRST-FM at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh with awards given out at the group’s annual convention in Bloomington, Minn.

The awards are named for and honor Eric Sevareid, a longtime CBS News reporter and commentator. 2009 was the first year WRST submitted entries for consideration, and the station came away with three awards in the student radio categories:

In the Talk/Public Affairs category, WRST received first place for the station’s 2008 “Election Night Special,” produced by student station manager Dan VanDenEng and student news director Aaron Vaughn. The five-hour live broadcast featured numerous UW Oshkosh professors as in-studio guests, live reports of local vote totals from the Winnebago County Courthouse, news features and candidate speeches from the Public Radio Exchange, and live events from National Public Radio. Nearly every student involved at WRST took part in this broadcast.

In the Sports Play-By-Play category, WRST received the Award of Merit for the broadcast of the UWO women’s volleyball team in round one of the NCAA’s “Elite Eight” tournament in a matchup against Juniata College. Student co-sports director Scot Frassetto and student sportscaster Ryan Wing called the game from Bloomington, Ill.

  • Listen to the clip.

In the Audio category, WRST received an Award of Merit for a feature by VanDenEng, called “A Moving Experience.” The sound-rich feature was produced for the Advanced Radio Production class.

  • Listen to the clip.

In the association’s categories for professional broadcasters, UW Oshkosh Director of Radio Services Randall Davidson was honored for his feature report on vintage baseball, which profiled teams in Wisconsin that play baseball under the rules of the 1860s. The report received a first place award in the Soft Feature category and the Award of Merit in the category for Sports Reporting.

In addition to airing locally on WRST-FM, the segment was aired on public radio stations in Milwaukee, Madison, Hayward and Superior. Davidson joined UW-Oshkosh in the fall of 2008 after eighteen years as a news producer and news anchor at Wisconsin Public Radio in Madison.

For more information about WRST-FM, visit www.uwosh.edu/wrst.