UA Hosts ASPA Annual State Convention Feb. 27-28

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama will host the Alabama Scholastic Press Association (ASPA), annual state convention on Feb. 27-28.

The convention welcomes high-school journalism students and teachers from across the state to attend sessions devoted to newspapers, yearbooks, literary magazines, broadcasts, photography and desktop publishing.

The Alabama high-school journalist, adviser and administrator of the year will be announced, as well as the results of ASPA’s winter competitions. The recipient of the $2,500 J.B. Stevenson Scholarship, made by the Alabama Press Association will also be announced.

A number of journalists, journalism educators and media professionals are scheduled to speak and lead informative workshops at the ASPA Convention. These professionals include:

• Joseph Bryant, former editor of The Crimson White (the UA student newspaper), is a reporter for The Birmingham News.
• Butler Cain is news director of Alabama Public Radio.
• Ashley Clayton is editor in chief of the Corolla, the UA yearbook.
• Thorun Crawford has been in the yearbook business for over 13 years as an adviser and then as a Walsworth sales representative. Her customers have won many ASPA and CSPA awards, including gold medals.
• Bryan Crowson is a copy desk chief at The Birmingham News. He has 19 years of newspaper experience, including a decade as a reporter and nine years on the copy desk.
• Lauren Davidson is a managing editor of The Crimson White and president of the UA chapter of the Society for News Design.
• Pam Doyle is an associate professor of telecommunications and film at UA, where she specializes in teaching broadcast news.
• Andy Duncan is a former high-school yearbook editor, is director of the Alabama Scholastic Press Association and assistant director of student media at UA. His fiction collection “Beluthahatchie and Other Stories” won a World Fantasy Award.
• Ben George is sports director at WVUA (90.7 FM), the UA student radio station.
• Lemanski Hall is a former offensive linebacker with the Houston and Tennessee Oilers, Chicago Bears, Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings.
• Roy Hoffman is a staff writer for the Mobile Register and a faculty member in the M.F.A. creative-writing program at Spalding University in Lexington, Ky., teaching fiction and creative nonfiction. His books include a non-fiction collection, “Back Home: Journeys Through Mobile,” and two novels, “Almost Family” and “Chicken Dreaming Corn.” His byline has appeared in Esquire, The New York Times Book Review, The Oxford American, Southern Living and The Washington Post. A photo of Roy sitting on a dock in Mobile Bay is in the coffee-table book “Shalom, Y’all: Images of Jewish Life in the American South.”
• John Huddleston is weekend sports anchor and sports reporter for WVUA-TV (Channel 7) in Tuscaloosa. He is producer of Tider Insider TV, a weekly look into Crimson Tide athletics and recruiting. He formerly worked at College Sports Southeast in Birmingham.
• Regan Huff developed the Newsroom Studio at Birmingham’s McWane Center and is co-author of “Journalism: A Survival Guide.”
• David Knight is a public information officer for the Lancaster, S.C., schools. He has advised two award-winning newspapers, a literary magazine and a broadcast journalism program. His personal honors include a Pioneer Award from the National Scholastic Press Association and a $12,000 Education’s Unsung Hero Award sponsored by the financial services company ING. One of the most sought-after workshop leaders in scholastic journalism, he has a funny, high energy style like no other.
• Hank Lazer is a poet, a performance artist and assistant vice president for undergraduate programs at UA.
• Sheri Monfee represents Herff Jones yearbooks. A graphic artist, she has worked in publishing for more than 20 years, at a daily newspaper and a commercial printer as well as the Herff Jones plant in Montgomery.
• Michael Palmer is a staff photographer at The Tuscaloosa News. His photo of a distraught neighbor, Mike Harris, carrying an injured child, 6-year-old Whitney Crowder from tornado wreckage in December 2000 was reported nationwide. “Instead of just walking up with a camera to my face,” Palmer said, “I approached them as a human being first.”
• Tiffany Schwarz is assistant managing editor and special editions editor at The Crimson White. She is president of the UA chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
• Terry Siggers is a production and technology manager of the Office of Student Media at UA.
• Thomas Spencer is a state higher education reporter at The Birmingham News. He formerly wrote for The Anniston Star and The Birmingham Weekly.
• Bruce Watterson, vice president of public relations at Shorter College in Rome, Ga., is contests and judging coordinator for both secondary and collegiate divisions of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. A frequent workshop leader, Watterson holds the JEA Medal of Merit, the CSPA Gold Key and the NSPA Pioneer Award. He recently put the 2004 CSPA Crown winners on CD.
• Bonita Weaver is editor of the Marr’s Field Journal, UA’s undergraduate literary magazine, and senior editor of the New College Review. She is senior English major.

The per-person registration fee is $40 for ASPA member publications and $50 for non-member publications and includes a bowling party Friday night and a continental breakfast Saturday. Registration for this convention begins at 9 a.m. Friday, Feb. 27, in the Ferguson Theater.

For more information contact the ASPA office at 205/348-9298, or Andy Duncan at aduncan@sa.ua.edu.