By Jessica Dillon
Staff Writer
Amelia Kibbe, the 12th St. Bonaventure recipient of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation scholarship, traveled to California last weekend to receive her award.
Each year, the foundation coordinates a nationwide sports essay competition for journalism undergraduates. The competition prompts students with a 3.0 GPA or higher to prepare essays of 750-1000 words on pre-selected sports topics. The essays are pre-screened by each entrant’s university journalism department before the qualifiers are sent on to a panel of nationally known journalists.
Journalism professors Denny Wilkins, Ph.D., Rich Lee, Ph.D., Chris Mackowski, Ph.D., Paul Wieland and Carole McNall have presided on St. Bonaventure’s university judging panel. These professors look out for “excellent, excellent writing” when judging essays. Though the judges receive many entries, they can submit only one, said Dr. Pauline Hoffmann, dean of the Jandoli School of Communication.
According to the foundation, winners of the national competition are chosen based on integrity of character, interest in and respect for fellow humans and the energy to use their writing talents to the fullest.
Kibbe, a senior journalism and mass communication and English dual major, was a recipient of one of this year’s five $5,000 scholarships.
Hoffmann had only positive things to say about the choice.
“Amelia is an excellent student and an excellent writer,” Hoffmann said. “Her experience with the BV and in her internships certainly speaks to her talents as a journalist. She was able to take a story and make it compelling enough and written well enough that a panel of national judges thought she was a national Murray Scholar. No one here in the J School had any doubt.”
In her essay, Kibbe detailed the experiences of former student-athlete Katie Sinclair, a 2016 Bonaventure graduate who made a bone marrow donation last winter.
“The focus of my essay was that she very selflessly decided to donate, even though she knew the surgery can be dangerous and that she was risking not only coming back to school, obviously, but also coming back as a softball player,” Kibbe said. “She knew that this person was in a much worse situation than she.”
Kibbe credits her success to the training she has received at the Jandoli School.
“Bonaventure taught me how to write quickly and effectively,” Kibbe said. “I got to that point because of what I’ve learned from my Bonaventure professors. When I was interviewing, I could start to picture the story. I knew to write in the past tense. I knew to vary my sentence length. I knew to use the active past instead of the passive past.”
Kibbe traveled to Arcadia, California last Thursday for the ceremony.
“We had a couple receptions and stuff like that, dinners,” Kibbe said. “We spent a day touring L.A. and the surrounding areas which was a lot of fun. It was actually done by a former head of city council, so he knew everybody. It was a really good tour–very tiring.”
Kibbe said the experience was enlightening.
“When I went out there, what was so cool was that we’re just a small little school on the East coast,” Kibbe said. “I spent a lot of time explaining where St. Bonaventure was geographically, but a lot of the other people there had heard of Bonaventure. It was cool talking to people from ESPN or the Associated Press, and that they knew about St. Bonaventure and that it was a journalism school. If they didn’t know, they wanted to learn more.”
Kibbe was also thankful for the support of Bonaventure alumnus.
“Bob Curran, who graduated from here, got the school involved,” Kibbe said. “He was the one that told the CEO of the foundation to invite this school. It shows how special Bonaventure is that this guy flew across the country from New York City just for this event. I was very grateful to him.”
Kibbe said she was appreciative of the journalism faculty and staff that made this opportunity possible.
“I was very excited to represent Bonaventure,” Kibbe said. “I was very lucky to represent Bonaventure. I’m very happy, very thankful to have had help along the way.”
dillonj15@bonaventure.edu
