Four scholarships will be given out during the WBA Student Seminar on March 5 to students studying broadcasting in Wisconsin. Learn more about the WBA Student Scholarship program and apply here. Interested in supporting the scholarship program? Learn more here.
The recipients are:
Kaylee Staral
Kaylee Staral is the 2022 Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Foundation Scholarship recipient.
Staral is attending Marquette University and majoring in journalism with minors in digital media and communications studies. She is planning to graduate in the spring of 2023.
Staral’s career goal is to be a broadcast and multimedia journalist and reporter covering national stories that make an impact on people and help them stay informed about issues they may not know about.
In her work in student media on campus, Staral has won numerous awards from the regional Society of Professional Journalists and National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. She’s served as assistant news producer and executive news producer for Marquette Wire. She is a business reporting intern for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
One of her instructors describes Staral is a prolific reporter, photojournalist, and news anchor and said, “She handled the intense workload and deadline pressure with grace and style, continually showing her dedication to the task at hand and her willingness to work hard.”
Gaby Vinick
Gabrielle Vinick is the 2022 Morgan Murphy Media Scholarship recipient.
Vinick is attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is majoring in journalism and political science. She is planning to graduate in the spring of 2022.
Vinick’s career goal is to cover a wide variety of people and places of interest through broadcast journalism. She wants to report on environmental issues with a focus on people at the forefront of the struggle for equity and environmental protection.
Vinick introduced a new chapter of The Women’s Network (TWN) to campus. TWN is a national collegiate women’s networking organization focused on connecting students to their peers and female leaders across various industries, including journalism and communications. Her team recruited more than 1,000 active members in one year.
In addition to working at the Daily Cardinal, Vinick works at both Madison Magazine and News Not Noise, founded by award-winning journalist Jessica Yellin. She writes stories, fact-checks pieces, conducts research and pitches weekly story and interview ideas.
Vinick is described as a natural leader who knows how to identify challenges and put people first.
Kim Leadhom
Kim Leadholm is the 2022 David L. Nelson Scholarship recipient.
Leadholm is attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is majoring in journalism and political science. She is planning to graduate in the spring of 2022.
Leadholm aspires to be a multimedia journalist and also has interest in producing.
On campus Leadholm writes for the Badger Herald and won gold in the Milwaukee Press Club’s 2020 Excellence in Journalism Awards for the class website “2020 in 20-20” where she was managing editor.
Leadholm is an intern on Here and Now on PBS Wisconsin, a communications intern for Habitat for Humanity of Dane County, and communications intern for the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
Leadholm is described by an intern supervisor as energetic, enthusiastic, and can-do. Both of her letters of recommendation noted the strength of her resume as early as high school and her passion for journalism. One wrote, “Her boundless curiosity and tenacity ensure that work is not only completed on time, but also, thoroughly.”
Vanessa Rivera
Vanessa Rivera is the 2022 Howard Gernetzke Scholarship recipient.
Rivera is attending Marquette University. She is majoring in Journalism. She is planning to graduate in the spring of 2022.
Rivera would like to produce multimedia content in a meaningful, impactful way about the communities she serves while continuing to grow as a journalist as a whole.
She was involved on the Marquette campus as the executive producer for the Marquette Wire and previously served as the assistant news producer. She is an intern at the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Journalism where she’s experimenting with long-form journalism using video and print. She’s currently a news producer at WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee.
Two of Rivera’s newscasts were nominated for Best
Newscast College Production Awards from the Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
One of her instructors describes Rivera as “smart, dedicated, passionate, and deeply committed to our culture of excellence, hard work, kindness, collaboration, diversity, and inclusion.”