The Big Island Press Club will honor five students at its annual scholarship awards dinner at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Hilo’s Seaside Restaurant. Award-winning comedian Augie T. will be the guest speaker.
The Big Island Press Club will honor five students at its annual scholarship awards dinner at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Hilo’s Seaside Restaurant. Award-winning comedian Augie T. will be the guest speaker.
The recipients of the $4,600 in awards, to support students striving toward careers in journalism or communications, are Kacie LaGuire, Alex Bitter, Cashman Aiu, Britni Schock and Eli Matola.
This year’s $1,500 Robert C. Miller Memorial Scholarship is awarded to LaGuire, a 2015 Waiakea High School graduate who will attend the University of San Francisco in the fall majoring in media studies.
LaGuire has been active at Waiakea as a videographer, producing segments on student life for the PBS Hawaii student television program, “Hiki No.” The scholarship namesake, Robert Miller, was a Big Island newsman and UPI reporter.
The $1,000 Bill Arballo scholarship is awarded to Bitter, a 2012 graduate of Waiakea High School who attends the University of Hawaii at Manoa as a regent’s scholar, majoring in journalism and political science.
At UH Manoa, Bitter served as editor and staff writer for the school newspaper Ka Leo O Hawai‘i. Bitter has interned at Honolulu and Hawaii Business magazine.
The Arballo scholarship’s namesake was a founder of the press club in 1967.
Aiu’s $1,000 scholarship is in honor of Marcia Reynolds, a former Hawaii Tribune-Herald reporter, BIPC president and community leader. Aiu was a 2014 graduate of Kamehameha Schools-Hawaii and attends New York University. She is a media, culture and communications major.
She is the Oceania editor for NYU’s travel magazine Baedeker and a contributing writer for Fashion Week for the Washington Square News.
Schock receives this year’s $600 Yukino Fukabori Memorial Scholarship, given to honor one of Hawaii Island’s top woman news reporters.
Schock graduated from Canada’s Selkirk Secondary in 2008 and attends University of Hawaii at Hilo, where she is a communications major. She is a writer for the UHH student newspaper Ke Kalahea and also a student member of Big Island Press Club.
This year’s $500 Jack Markey Memorial Scholarship is awarded to Matola, a 2011 graduate of Kapaa High School on Kauai. He attends UH-Hilo where he is a philosophy and communications major.
Cost of the awards dinner is $35 in advance and $40 at the door. For reservations and more information, call BIPC scholarship committee member Tiffany Edwards Hunt at 938-8592.