Two Daily staff members recognized for excellence

Several DAILY staff members received awards this week that lauded them for overall journalistic excellence.

Medill sophomore Abe Rakov, who served as THE DAILY’s campus editor for Spring Quarter, received the first William J. Eaton Memorial Award from the Student’s Publishing Company Thursday. The award included a cash prize of $500.

The Eaton Memorial Award is given to a dedicated staff member who is always willing to pitch in at the newsroom, above and beyond regular duties.

William Eaton, Medill ’51, was a dedicated DAILY staff member from 1947 to 1951. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 and eventually became a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. When he died in August 2005, his friends collected $4,000 for a memorial award to be given to a DAILY staffer.

The award stipulates that a DAILY staff member is given the Eaton Memorial Award – along with $500 – each quarter until all the money is disbursed. The editorial board submits nominations, and the Student’s Publishing Company Board of Directors chooses one finalist.

Medill sophomore Lauren Pond, who served as photo editor for THE DAILY during Spring Quarter, won the Kay Krieghbaum Memorial Photographic Contest this week for a photo that appeared in THE DAILY on March 29. The photo was a close-up on the lead singer of the band Harry and the Potters.

The Kay Krieghbaum Memorial Award, presented in memory of Kay Krieghbaum, Medill ’69, a former DAILY photographer who was killed by a hit-and-run shortly after her graduation, grants $100 to the best photograph taken by an NU student every academic year. The Student’s Publishing Company Board of Directors chooses the best entry.

THE DAILY also was named one of the nation’s top college newspapers as winner of the Associated Collegiate Press’ National Newspaper Pacemaker Award for overall journalistic excellence for the 2005 academic year. This is the fourth time in six years that THE DAILY has been awarded with this distinction.