-30--30-

A publication for EIU journalism and student media alumni

NON PROFIT ORGUS POSTAGE PAIDPERMIT NO 24CHARLESTON, IL 61920

EIU Journalism Dept.600 Lincoln Ave.Charleston, IL 61920

Volume 40 , No 2, February 2015

INSIDE:Daniel Verdun’s historyof Eastern football, pg. 2

Randi Bohannon builds relationships, pg. 6 Class Notes, Faculty Notes, pgs. 4, 5, 8

MEET US AT:Homecoming North, Saturday,

Feb. 21, 2015, pg. 6

Alums handle copy desk, reporting, productionat Chicagoland Shaw Media newspapers

Together again

Editor’s note: We’ve been noticing a pattern. Some of our recent gradu-ates have found themselves working in familiar surroundings – together again, this time in a professional set-ting. In the coming issues of -30- we’ll be hearing from some of them.

The copy desk at the Northwest Herald is full of former Eastern New-ers. Kristina Peters (’09) is the night production editor, and she works next to Juliette Beaulieu (’09). Across the way is Kevin Murphy (’10), and now Chris Walden (’08) has joined the team. The group is part of a team that designs and copy edits five Shaw Media newspapers: The North-west Herald, The Daily Chronicle in DeKalb, The Kane County Chronicle, The Morris Daily Herald and The Jo-liet Herald-News. Reporter Stephen DiBenedetto (’10) is across the way near the scanner, listening for break-ing news.

Here are their stories.

For Juliette Beaulieu, going to work at the Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, Ill., a little more than three years ago was like going back to EIU Student Publications newsroom.

“I had a desk right next to Ka-tie Anderson,” she said. “When I got there I already had a friend.”

Anderson-Tedder (’08) was a re-porter at that time.

Beaulieu had worked in Virgin-ia as a copy editor and page designer at The News and Advance in Lynch-burg. She saw the advertisement on journalismjobs.com and even though she was a team leader at her paper in Virginia, she was ready to think about coming back to Illinois.

And she knew she’d be with East-ern News friends.

“It made me want to take the job,” she said.

Beaulieu works the 4 p.m. to mid-night shift Tuesday through Saturday.

“It’s fun,” Beaulieu said. “I like working with them.”

As editor-in-chief of The Daily Eastern News, Kristina Peters was a leader in the newsroom. And now she’s the leader of the copy desk.

After she graduated from East-ern she went to work at the Ottawa Times as a designer, and for the past

four years she has been on the copy/design desk at the Northwest Her-ald, circulation of about 33,000, and the other four papers owned by Shaw Media.

There she has been able to create a mini-Eastern News newsroom. On any given night, of the 12 copy edi-tors/designers on the desk, four of them are from Eastern.

“We have people from Northern Illinois and Northwestern and other schools, but Eastern is the most rep-resented on the desk,” Peters said.

Because they have worked to-gether, Peters says, they play on each other’s strengths.

Peters explained that she is better at design while Beaulieu is better at copy editing.

“It’s a good collaboration,” she said. “If I have a copy editing ques-tion, I can just ask her. We sit next to each other.”

And knowing each other for a long time brings another kind of re-liability.

See Alums, Page 7

Photo: H. Rick Bamman, Shaw Media photo editorFrom left, Stephen Di Benedetto, Northwest Herald reporter; Kevin Murphy, copy desk designer/copy ed-itor; Juliette Beaulieu, assistant night production editor; Chris Walden, copy desk designer/copy editor; and Kristina Peters, night production editor. The copy desk works with five newspapers: The Northwest Herald, The Kane County Chronicle, The (DeKalb) Daily Chronicle, The Morris Daily Herald and The Joliet Herald-News.

2 -30--30- for EIU journalism and student media alumni

By Sharita HarrisJournalism alumnus Daniel Ver-

dun continues to represent his alma mater proudly with the 2014 publi-cation of his book, “Eastern Illinois Panthers Football.”

Verdun was making the rounds during Homecoming 2014 week-end to talk to friends and to sell his new book, “Eastern Illinois Panthers Football.” It is the second in a series of books about college football in Il-linois. The first was about Northern Illinois University.

Verdun said his publications are different from other football books because they go more in-depth for readers to learn about the football players of Eastern Illinois.

“‘Eastern Illinois Panthers Foot-ball’  is part of a five-book series on college football in our state,” said Verdun. “The series combines my in-terests in sports, history and writing. More importantly, it chronicles some amazing human interest stories about the men who played and coached at universities like Eastern Illinois.”

Verdun enjoyed writing about the history of Eastern football because of its unique legacy both on and off the football field.

“Eastern Illinois University is unique in that it has produced a na-tional championship (1978), three NFL head coaches (Mike Shanahan, Sean Payton & Brad Childress), two of whom have won a combined’three

Super Bowls, two Walter Payton Award winners (Tony Romo and Jimmy Garoppolo), an NFL offensive coordinator (Mike Heimerdinger), a Tuskegee Airman (Charles Hall) who became the first African-American pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft and an Academy Award winner (Burl Ives),” Verdun said.

Diving deeper, Verdun used his skills from his education and current profession to help shape his books, especially during the process of writ-ing “Eastern Illinois Panthers Foot-

ball.”Verdun graduated from Odell

Community High School in 1983. He grew up in Odell, Ill., with his three brothers.

He graduated in 1988 and was a double major in history and journal-ism. While at Eastern, he was sports editor at The Daily Eastern News and was on staff for The Warbler. Ver-dun said many of his lifelong friends come from those days.

“My degree from Eastern Illi-nois played a vital role in this book.

I used research methods gained from my history side as well as interview-ing principles and writing skills from my journalism side,” he said. “The experience I gained through course-work and through working on a dai-ly newspaper in college taught me a wealth of techniques and methods that I continue to use to this day.”

Since graduating, Verdun has used knowledge acquired from East-ern and his love for teaching, which has served as the foundation for his career choice as well as his daily hob-bies. He teaches English at Scullen Middle School in Naperville.

“I have taught English language arts and social studies for the past 27 years. I have also coached. I enjoy working with young people, both get-ting to know them and seeing them grow and mature,” he said.

Verdun said a perfect day for him involves family, friends, good food and some sort of sporting event with a little reading and writing sprinkled in.

Alum chronicles history of Eastern football

Photo: Paul PinderskiDan Verdun (‘88) signed copies of his book at Homecoming in October.

Journalism, students keep department goingFrom the chair

“My degree from Eastern Illinois played a vital role in this book. I used research methods gained from my history side as well as interviewing principles and writing skills from my journalism side.”

Dan Verdun

By Sally RenaudLet me paint a picture. It’s busy

around the faculty offices of Buzzard Hall. Fine-tuning the curriculum. Creating new content for the website. Rethinking promotional materials. Meeting prospective students. Get-ting to know our underclassmen. Ad-vising student media. Teaching class-es. Welcoming professional guests. Serving in various capacities across campus.

And we are doing this with few-er faculty than before. More with less. Across the campus and across the country, we are being told no. No new faculty. No supplies. No money. No.

It’s discouraging, to say the least. We know that many of you are

facing the same kinds of workplace stress that we are, filling in the gaps as needed but feeling a little discour-aged about the state of, well, our state and our industry. Illinois seems to be in bad shape financially and in un-certainty. The news industry is suf-fering at the hands of corporate lead-ership and declining profit margins.

But two things keep us going:

journalism and our students–past and present.

JournalismAs it has been throughout Amer-

ican history, the role of journalism now is vital. And it’s exciting, both the positive and the negative.

We love good story-telling. We re-vere reporting that goes beyond, that analyzes and interprets. We continue to marvel at the reporting in times of crisis, whether it be in Ferguson or in Paris or in the Middle East.

We are not so enthused about other aspects of the industry. We were incensed at the influence of outside forces who can dictate con-tent and staffing, which hit home this fall when a battle with then-gu-bernatorial candidate Bruce Raun-er and Sun-Times culminated in the resignation of Illinois Statehouse re-porter Dave McKinney (’86) after he worked almost two decades at the paper.

We are agitated about work be-ing done in the name of journalism that’s false, slanted or mere opin-

ion disguised as journalism, and we continue to urge the study of news literacy so that the audience can tell the difference. In fact, the depart-ment has developed a news literacy course that will be offered through the university’s general education program starting in the fall. It’s that important.

But we take the good with the bad, and we are proud of the role journalism plays in exposing soci-etal ills, in disseminating news and information, in providing public forums, in ensuring democracy re-mains strong.

EIU students, past and presentIt’s bittersweet to say goodbye to

our graduating seniors, and we al-ways wonder how we’ll get along without them; they play such a big role with our student media. Our 10 December graduates included two editors-in-chief of The Daily East-ern News, two sports editors, the Sil-ver Dome winner for the best col-lege sports play-by play, the host of WEIU’s Illinois and two News Watch

anchors. Big shoes to fill both in the newsrooms and the classrooms.

But as always, the remaining stu-dents rise to the occasion. New edi-tors, reporters, disc jockeys and an-chors are chosen, following in the footsteps of the students who’ve been going through our program for near-ly 40 years. The paper comes out. The shows go on. We help these new jour-nalists as they cover government, crime, the economy and the person-alities of the campus and the commu-nity.

Eventually they, too, will leave us, and we will watch closely as they move on to new adventures. We follow our alumni’s career paths with pride and their familial adventures with joy. You can read about some of them on pag-es 4 and 5 of this issue of -30-.

Our passion for journalism and for the men and women of Eastern’s journalism program who love it, too, makes whatever crises we face on campus worthwhile. We work to serve journalism and the people who love it. They both are the reasons we are here.

3February 2015

-30- is a publication of the EIU Department of Journalism

2521 Buzzard Hall600 Lincoln Ave.

Charleston, IL 61920217-581-6003

www.eiu.edu/~journal

-30- is organized, edited and designed by The Agency, the stu-dent-run public relations firm at EIU.

The Agency meets at 5 p.m. every Thurday in 2434 Buzzard Hall.

The Agency produces -30-, writes news for the department’s Wordpress blog at eiujournalism.wordpress.com and handles the department’s twitter @EIU_Journalism

Editor: Lexi Stickel, aestickel@eiu.edu

Writers: Lola Burnham, John Ryan, Sally Renaud, Tenicha Hudson, Jazmin Smiley, Sharita Harris, Liz Grubart

The Agency Adviser: Liz Viall, ekviall@eiu.edu

Photos: Paul Pinderski, Mindy Fonner, H. Rick Kamman, Lola Burn-ham, Joe Gisondi, Liz Viall

Office administator earns degree

Photo: Mindy FonnerBeth Kastl, journalism office administrator, earns EIU degree.

By Jazmin SmileyElizabeth Kastl, known as “Beth”

in the journalism department, grad-uated in the fall of 2014 from East-ern’s School of Continuing Educa-tion.

“In the beginning it was easy and in the end I really got senioritis,” said Kastl, journalism department office administrator.

Kastl has been an EIU employ-ee since 2000 and has worked as the office administrator since 2006. She has been enrolled as a student at EIU since fall 2007.

“I don’t know how she does ev-erything she does during the time she has been here. She has cultivated close relationships with our students and effortlessly seems to balance family, work and her own person-al development,” said Sally Renaud, professor and interim chair of jour-nalism.

Kastl was determined to get her degree, despite being a full-time employee and single mother to an 11-year-old. Kastl mentioned several reasons she pursued her degree, but her daughter was the No. 1 reason.

“My parents didn’t attend col-lege and I felt that I didn’t have to ei-ther. I lived in Charleston all my life and never set foot on campus. As my

daughter grew older, I didn’t want her to have any excuse not to go,” Kastl said. “In my house it’s ‘when you go to college,’ not ‘if you go to college.”

Kastl said she has learned so much from her general studies de-gree. She took classes in business, family and consumer science, and sociology, as well as online, which she found the most challenging.

“This degree has been beneficial in all facets of my life, in career, fami-ly and other avenues I choose to pur-sue in the future,” she said.

Kastl’s accomplishments are sig-nificant because as she pursued her degree, she was simultaneously the glue that kept the journalism depart-ment together.

“All of these years she has been taking care of us. Family, staff, fac-ulty, in crises and in happiness,” Re-naud said, “I’ve watched her over the years really take care of people and not ask for anything in return. I’m really proud of her.”

In addition to playing an import-ant role in the journalism depart-ment, Kastl has achieved one of her major life goals. “By pursuing this degree, I wanted to show my daugh-ter that she can do anything you set your mind to, it doesn’t matter where you come from,” Kastl said.

By Liz GrubartRoom blocks have been set aside

at Charleston’s two hotels in prepa-ration for The Daily Eastern News’ 100th anniversary celebration Nov. 7 at the University Union.

Alumni wishing to stay over-night can book a room at either the Unique Suites Hotel, formerly the Worthington Inn, or at the Days Inn, said John Ryan, director of Stu-dent Publications.

“We have a 50-room block at Unique Suites and a 30-room block at the Days Inn,” Ryan said. “Howev-er, both hotels have said they could extend the room block, depending on availability.”

Reservations should be made at least two weeks in advance of the celebration. Unique Suites, 920 W. Lincoln Ave., has undergone an ex-tensive renovation. Executive rooms go for $86.49 a night, while standard rooms go for $74.49. Reservations can be made by calling 217-348-8161.

The Days Inn, 810 W. Lincoln Ave., will charge $59.99 for a king bed room and $64.99 for a room with two beds. Reservations can be made by calling 217-345-7689.

Ryan said he will gauge the de-

mand on the rooms and could pos-sibly set aside room blocks at hotels in Mattoon.

Plans for the 100th anniversary so far include a reception and a din-ner in the University Ballroom from 6 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 7. An after-party may also be held, possi-bly at Unique Suites.

The Daily Eastern News offi-cially turns 100 on Nov. 5, 2015, a Thursday.

Fundraising DriveA fundraising drive to raise

$100,000 for The Daily Eastern News Endowment fund is also underway. Thus far nearly $30,000 has been raised and another $10,000 pledged to the fund. The endowment fund will be overseen by the Eastern Illi-nois University Foundation with in-terest money going each year to help finance the student newspaper into the next 100 years.

Madeleine Doubek (’85) and Mark Turk (’77) are co-chairs for what has been dubbed the “Publish-ing The Next 100 Years” campaign.

A golf outing and perhaps a summer reception are tentatively being planned, Ryan said.

Additional reporting by John Ryan

The Daily Eastern Newsto mark 100th anniversary

4 -30--30- for EIU journalism and student media alumni

Class Notes1980

Tom Keefe earned an all-ex-penses-paid trip to Super Bowl XLIX (49 for Latin-numeral-chal-lenged readers). Tom’s employer, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., held a contest in which employees could submit a 15-second video and 150-word statement regarding their “favorite football moment.” His en-try of a Bear/Packers game at which Tom first saw Aaron Rodgers in ac-tion was one of three finalists. After an employee vote, Tom’s entry was the winner.

Tom is also developing a second career as a paid public speaker under the moniker of “Commakazi,” and he would love to hear from other East-ern journalism alums who are work-ing as a paid speaker or who could provide  referrals to opportunities. For more information, contact Tom via email at commakazi@commaka-zi.com or by phone at 847-977-8172.

1982Dan Brannan recently left The

Telegraph in Alton to become content director for an Alton-based website, Riverbender.com, which contains news and information for north-ern Madison, Calhoun, Jersey and Greene counties. Riverbender also recently launched a website, EdG-lenToday.com, that focuses on the communities of Edwardsville and Glen Carbon. Dan and his wife, Mi-chele, have three children and live in Glen Carbon. You can contact Dan at dbrannan1978@gmail.com. (Thanks to Brent Feeney [Class of 1988] for the update.)

Dru Sefton reports that she and husband Andy Savoie (Class of ’81) will celebrate their 10th wedding an-niversary April 9. Dru writes, “He’s planned a very top-secret week-long jaunt. Friends and family know what’s up but it’s a total surprise for me. Can’t wait!”

Dru is also learning to play an in-strument called a Saron in a Gamelan group in Washington, D.C. Gamelan is an ancient Indonesian musical tradition. Dru practices twice week-ly in an ensemble at the Indonesian Embassy in Washington. The instru-ments are mainly percussive metallo-phones, which she said are similar to xylophones, drums and large gongs. “The music is very ethereal, almost otherworldly,” she writes.

Peggy (McMeen) Stankoven has accepted a limited partnership invi-tation with The Jones Financial Cos., the holding company for the finan-cial services firm Edward Jones. She joined Edward Jones in 2007 and works as a communications specialist in the marketing department.

1987Nancy Yamin Smith received a

2014 Distinguished Adviser Award

from the Dow Jones News Fund at a luncheon in Washington, D.C., in November. Smith, a former ed-itor-in-chief of the Warbler, has taught high school journalism for nearly 30 years, for many years at Lafayette High School in Wildwood, Mo., where she advises the Image newspaper, the Legend yearbook and lhsimage.com.

Diana Winson recently celebrat-ed 20 months as the Career Tech-nologies instructor at the Du Quoin Impact Incarceration Program — a “boot camp”-style minimum-securi-ty correctional facility. The course is offered through Lake Land College in Mattoon. Di writes that she con-tinues to work on her photography and writing skills and hopes to have a creative project finished by the end of this year.

1988Brent Feeney writes that he and

Dan Brannan (Class of 1982) are teamed up again, working for an Al-ton-based website, Riverbender.com, which contains news and informa-tion for northern Madison, Calhoun, Jersey and Greene counties. River-bender also recently launched a web-site, EdGlenToday.com, that focuses on the communities of Edwardsville and Glen Carbon.

Dan recently left a 17-year stint as executive editor of The Telegraph in Alton to take the position of con-tent director, while Brent is cover-ing sports. The two of them worked together in Sikeston, Mo., Rocky Mount, N.C., and Clemson-Seneca, S.C.

Brent writes that he is still single. In addition to his work with River-bender, he is also a caretaker for his mom, who suffered a stroke in Octo-ber 2013 (his father died in January 2013), and he himself has recovered from a small stroke he suffered Dec. 11. Brent (when not spending time in Glen Carbon with his mom) lives in the Carondelet neighborhood of south St. Louis.

You can contact Brent at Brent-Feen16@yahoo.com.

Jean Wright Medina continues to lead communications for Airlines for America, the D.C.-based trade as-sociation for the largest U.S. airlines. She commutes between home in Ge-neva, Ill., where she lives with her three teen-aged daughters, and D.C., where she stays in her Mary Tyler Moore apartment, constantly on the lookout for Rhoda.

Michelle Mueller Teheux is a grandma! Charlotte Rose Moritz was born to April Hebron Moritz and Zach Moritz (both EIU grads) on Dec. 5, 2013. When she’s not doting on her granddaughter, Michelle is editor at the Pekin Daily Times, where she has been since 2008.

1990Deb Bullwinkel lives in Vil-

la Park and if you see her there you will have to address her as everyone there does and call her Village Pres-ident. She was elected in a landslide. She ascended to the presidency after serving four years as a village trust-ee. She continues to run her own PR/marketing company but says she does more convention meeting and planning PR/marketing these days.

1992Debbie Carlson has expand-

ed the number of publications she writes for to include The Guardian (London), where she writes weekly about commodities. That includes everything from the impact of OPEC’s decision not to cut oil pro-duction to why your steak prices are so high. She still writes for the Chi-cago Tribune and a number of other financial publications. This summer she interviewed one of her favorite authors ever, short-story master and MacArthur Genius grant winner Stu-art Dybek, as part of a monthly arts podcast she does for the Guild Liter-ary Complex. You can take a listen at https://soundcloud.com/guild-liter-ary-complex.

1993Women’s Media Center pub-

lished Laura (Durnell) Hincks’ commentary on breastfeeding edu-cation in August. It is titled, “Educa-tion About Breastfeeding Needs to Start Earlier — Much Earlier.” The URL for the article is: http://www.womensmediacenter.com/feature/entry/education-about-breastfeed-ing-needs-to-start-earliermuch-ear-lier

1995After working exclusively for me-

dia companies since he was 16, Ryan Giusti decided to feed a midlife crisis and risk it all for the exciting world of banking. In January he became the senior digital content developer for SunTrust Bank, the ninth largest bank in the U.S. He’ll be writing soft-ware requirements for the bank’s new content management system as well as helping lead a team responsible for publishing content to the bank’s vari-ous digital products. He notes that he “will also have to suck it up and use Windows for the first time” in his life.

Rob Manker is approaching two years out of newspapers after leaving the Chicago Tribune for the world of marketing, advertising, PR and social media. Rob is now manager of con-tent marketing for ConAgra Foods in Naperville. He leads an internal team of writers and graphic designers creating multi-platform digital and social content—articles, infograph-ics, listicles and videos—for brands such as Hunt’s tomatoes, RO*TEL, PAM cooking spray, Reddi-Wip, Or-ville Redenbacher’s and more. In this role, Rob is also editor of the newly launched Forkful.com, dedicated to covering ConAgra’s brands and their

stories with editorial-style content. On the side, Rob has taken up free-lance marketing communications and social media consulting.

Chris Seper is now vice presi-dent of healthcare at Breaking Media. Seper was formerly chief executive officer and founder of MedCity Me-dia, which was acquired by Breaking Media. Breaking Media runs Above the Law, Dealbreaker, Fashionista, Breaking Defense, Breaking Energy and Breaking Gov.

1998Reagan Branham started a new

job in August as a senior marketing coordinator at Hastings+Chivetta Architects in St. Louis. She also mar-ried Greg Jonsson, a Northwestern University journalism grad and an editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The couple met while Reagan was still working at the Post-Dispatch.

Chuck Burke and his wife, Kathy, welcomed a baby boy, Blaise Theo-dore, on Jan. 17. Blaise joins two sib-lings.

Katie (Vana) Manker just marked 14 years at the Chicago Tribune where she works as a part-time photo editor. She also recently launched her own side business, The Scan Artist (check out her page on Facebook), where she specializes in scanning, restor-ing and archiving digital versions of treasured printed photographs. That’s all in addition to her full-time gig of keeping the Goodship Manker sail-ing while ensuring that James (11), Tori (9) and Tommy (6) are all where they’re supposed to be when they’re supposed to be there. Katie and Rob still live in Naperville and would love to hear from you.

1999Tammie Sloup has been promot-

ed to managing editor of The Times at Ottawa, where she had served as as-sociate editor since 2008. She joined the newspaper as a reporter in 2002.

2003Alta King has been the commu-

nications specialist for the Quincy Area Chamber of Commerce since April 2014. She is responsible for member retention, media relations and newsletters. She also is in charge of the women’s networking and the Chamber’s sales and marketing events. King is also the editor of the bi-monthly newsletter of the Quin-cy Charter Chapter of the American Business Women’s Association and is in charge of publicity for the organi-zation.

2004Holly Henschen is the director

of communications at the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.

2005Matt Williams has been the as-

sistant director of pagination for Ci-vitas Media’s design hub in Lumber-

5February 2015

ton, N.C., since June 2014. His son, Lyle, turned 3 in November, and his daughter, Lorelei, turns 2 in April.

2006David and Laura (Griffith) In-

low, of Alton, welcomed a daughter, Amelia Harper Inlow, at 9:42 a.m. Sept. 4 at Alton Memorial Hospital in Alton. Amelia Harper weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces and was 20 inches long at birth. Her grandparents are Jim and Nancy Inlow, of Alton, and Robert and Minette Griffith, of God-frey. Her great-grandparents are Lois Donahue, of Godfrey, and Wayne In-low, of Alton.

Jennifer Chiariello Orland and husband, Geoff Orland, bought their first home at the end of September in Tinley Park. Jennifer writes, “We had surprise expert organizational help from The Rachael Ray Show on mov-ing day.”

Danny Williams and his wife, Stephanie, welcomed their second child, Rory Odin Williams, born at 4:45 p.m. Jan. 7. Rory weighed 9 pounds, 5 ounces and was 20 inches long at birth. He was also welcomed by his big sister, Grace Mae. In other news, Danny was also named pres-ident of the Rochelle Chamber of Commerce late last year.

2007Adam Testa accepted a position

as a communications specialist with the Anthem (Arizona) Community Council. In that role, he writes and edits a variety of materials, including social media, internal and external publications, and news story for the council website. He also photographs community events and participates in event promotion.

Holly Thomas is a case manag-er working with sexual assault and domestic violence survivors at Ad-vocates Building Peaceful Commu-nities in Steamboat Springs, Colo. In September, she also started a project called Operation No Shame with the mission to illuminate the fact that no one deserves to be raped, abused or bullied. Holly writes, “We encourage survivors of sexual assault, physical and emotional abuse, and bullying to raise their voice through art.” She is working toward nonprofit status in 2015.

Holly also published a book based on her graduate thesis, “IR Theory and State Cooperation on Blood Di-amonds,” and had several short sto-ries, essays, and poems published in various literary journals, such as The Cream City Review, The Veterans Proj-ect, The Review, and Crack The Spine.

In addition, her daughter Made-line turned 1 year old in 2014.

2008Matt Daniels was named act-

ing sports editor of the Champaign News-Gazette in January.

Jason Duarte is a pharmacy tech-

nician at Walgreens and is waiting to hear where he will be attending school to become a physician’s assistant.

Amanda Dugan is doing con-sumer media marketing at Bloomberg LP in New York City. She had been involved in marketing and audience development for Bloomberg LINK, following a stint at Crain Communi-cations.

Kevin Kenealy is teaching at Crete-Monee High School as a fresh-man honors and regular teacher. Kevin was hired in September as a late hire and writes that he is “loving every minute of it.” The school has a journalism club that Kevin hopes to be involved in next year and also has journalism classes that he plans to volunteer to teach. Outside school, Kevin continues to whittle away at his 50-state bucket list. He visited 18 states in 2014 and only has about 10 to go to reach his goal.

Hollie Smith, former Warbler ed-itor, married James Conroy on Nov. 23 in Key West, Fla. Hollie is a biz team section editor at Brafton, which provides content marketing strategies and the online writing, graphics and videos for businesses.

Adam L. Tedder and Katie An-derson-Tedder moved to Woodstock in October and will celebrate their third year of marriage on Oct. 5, 2015. Adam currently works for the Infor-mation and Technology Department of the Kane County government in Geneva. Katie manages her family business, Anderson’s Candy Shop in Richmond, and also writes freelance articles for various publications. Katie writes that they both “miss their DEN buddies.”

Chris Walden is just starting a new job as a copy editor and design-er with Shaw Media’s local newsdesk, which oversees several daily papers in the area, one of which is the Northwest Herald. He’ll be working alongside several Eastern alums, including Kris-tina Peters (’09) and Juliette Beau-lieu (’09).

2009Angela Pham was promoted to a

manager in the Thought Leadership Institute at PwC in November and is still working in the Manhattan office. Angela writes, “My big project of the last several months has been strategiz-ing for and managing the social me-dia presence of two executives at my company to promote their book, The Self-Made Billionaire Effect, published by Penguin’s business unit Portfolio in December.”

Dylan Polk is the news and sports editor at the Woodford Times.

Hannah (Plevka) Schulte and her husband, Michael (also an East-ern alum, Class of 2008), welcomed daughter Elsie Eileen Schulte on Nov. 25, 2014. She weighed 8 pounds,

8.2 ounces and was 20 inches long at birth. Grandfather John Plevka (Class of 1981) is general manager of the Vidette at Illinois State University. Rounding out the list of Eastern alums is John’s wife and Elsie’s grandmother, Jeanenne Plevka (Class of 1983). At the end of her list, Hannah wrote, “Elsie ’37 (kidding…sort of).” Maybe we’ll see Elsie around the halls of Buz-zard in the future.

In other news, Hannah and Mi-chael bought a house in Morton and moved there in July.

Rick Kambic is now a staff re-porter for the Chicago Tribune Media Group. For two years he has worked as a beat reporter covering news in the northwest suburbs of Chicago for the Pioneer Press newspaper chain. On Oct. 31, the Chicago Tribune bought Pioneer Press from the Chicago Sun-Times, ending its more than 30-year ownership over the suburban chain of 32 weekly newspapers. So far, Rick is maintaining his geographic beat for Pioneer Press covering a variety of news topics in Central Lake County, with some of his articles being repub-lished in the Chicago Tribune or other affiliated publications.

2010Ashley Corbett is part of the up-

dates team in the operations depart-ment at GrubHub Inc., where she has worked since October 2011. GrubHub is an Internet company where users can search for and order food for de-livery and pickup online in about 800 U.S. cities and London. As part of the update team, Ashley handles logo and menu updates.

Ashley writes, “Journalism helped me get this job and keep this job. The style that GrubHub uses is AP style. One of my jobs is to copy edit, or as we call it QA, the work as it gets complet-ed. Knowing the style makes it easier.”

Her knowledge of the “ins and outs” of Photoshop and InDesign led to her work with logos. She said she is surprised by the lack of people who know how to use those programs.

In her off-hours, she is still doing theater in Chicago as a freelance stage manager with different storefront the-ater companies. And as if that’s not enough, she also works as a tax pre-parer for H&R Block during tax sea-son. Whew!

Spenser Nobles is working at All-state in Northbrook.

Alycia Rockey, associate photo editor at Rodale, Inc., and a photo re-searcher at Budget Travel, is engaged to Jason Grafinger.

2011Dan Cusack joined Officite in

Downers Grove in September. He is a copywriter there, editing dental, chi-ropractic and veterinary blogs.

Jennifer (Brown) Olson start-ed as a sales associate at JCPenney in Champaign last April. She also pub-lished her first book in 2014, a poetry

collection titled “Rolling Tides” that is available on Kindle. You can read her blog at http://jenolson.net.

Kayleigh Zyskowski changed her last name to Rahn when she married William Rahn June 21. In September they bought a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Douglas County. Kayleigh also recently started a new gig as ed-itor of The Tuscola Journal.

2012Wally Swenson is head of advance

operations in Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner’s Springfield office.

2013Sara Hall recently accepted a po-

sition as a search engine optimiza-tion coordinator at Crate and Barrel, where she works on, among other things, product descriptions for the CB2 brand.

Chacour Koop is working for The Daily News in Galveston, Texas. He covers the suburbs of south Houston and Galveston Island.

2014Sean Copeland was just hired as

a featured columnist at Chi City Dig-ital Media. The company is a start-up focusing on entertainment, sports and fashion, as well as national trends, in the Chicago area. The site officially launched Feb. 1.

Sabrina Ann Duncan is working at Decatur Memorial Hospital in ma-terials management.

Kaylia Eskew recently completed a two-month internship at an archeo-logical dig site called Huacca Pullcana in Lima, Peru.

Brandyce Gordon joined the Eas-ter Seals Central Illinois in October as development coordinator and execu-tive assistant, based in Bloomington. Beginning in March, she and anoth-er young woman will be running a 5K each month to raise money. You can follow her progress on her blog at beautifulisnotanumber.wordpress.com and check out her fundraising page at https://www.kidstherapyprog-ress.com/Volunteers/Brandyce%20Gordon.

Zachary White accepted a job as a photographer and reporter at the Thermopolis Independent Record, a small weekly newspaper covering the town of Thermopolis, Wyo., which has a population of a little more than 3,000 and the largest mineral hot spring in the world. Zach reports that he made this decision on purpose, even though when he moved west he hardly had anything someone in Wy-oming would consider “boots.”

Amy Wywialowski is working on her master’s in historical admin-istration at Eastern and has been occasionally freelancing for the Eff-ingham Daily News. She also became engaged to Alex Gillespie on Dec. 4.

6 -30--30- for EIU journalism and student media alumni

By Tenicha HudsonRandi Bohannon, EIU director of

development, said she’s found jour-nalism alums to be a “really tight-knit group.”

“The alumni seem to make their own effort to stay in contact with the department,” she said.

Since Bohannon started working at Eastern in 2013, she has had to ad-just to navigating her way around to get in contact with alumni.

“This is a first time I have worked at a university level,” Bohannon said.

Bohannon has worked for con-gressmen and the House of Repre-sentatives but said she enjoys this role more.

Bohannon’s job as director of de-velopment is to connect with alumni of the university.

“My job is to generate revenue for the university through fund develop-ment,” she explained.

“It was a happy accident. The po-sition came open at Eastern and I just thought that would be nice to be at home and here I am,” Bohannon said.

Since Bohannon has been here,

she has been able to build relation-ships with alumni whom she has connected with through her job.

“I consider some of the alumni my friends,” she said.

Many of the alumni whom she has maintained contact with have es-tablished a relationship with the uni-versity.

“The alumni that I have contact-ed are motivated to give back to the university because of their experi-ence here,” Bohannon said.

As an alumna Bohannon is famil-iar with the university.

“I was a non-traditional student, working full-time and a single mom when I went to get my degree,” she said.

Bohannon’s oldest daughter re-cently graduated and she has another daughter who currently attends East-ern.

Even though Bohannon has worked here a short time, she has seen how Eastern’s alumni want to continue to have a relationship with the university.

“I love the loyalty that alums have

for EIU,” Bohannon said.As the director of development,

Bohannon has seen how many alum-ni continued to stay active in their department.

Bohannon said the first time she met Sally Renaud, the interim chair of the journalism department, she

saw how Renaud interacted with stu-dents.

“She has a genuine concern for people and their success,” Bohannon says.

Renaud has helped Bohannon network with journalism alumni.

“I needed a speaker for an event and she told me about a young lady that would speak at the event,” Bo-hannon said.

She relies heavily on the people in the departments to help her contact alumni.

“They maintain relationships and stay in contact with their alums and genuinely want them to be suc-cessful and do what they can to sup-port that,” she said.

Bohannon said many alumni want to make sure that future genera-tions will have the same opportunity as they had when they attended EIU.

“I want to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to not only provide scholarships but make sure people know that they are out there,” she said.

We are always proud of our stu-dent media, the students who pro-duce them and the advisers who guide them. In the past several months, others have noted excep-tional work in that regard. The fol-lowing awards have been given to Eastern Illinois student media in the past few months:

•  Brad Kupiec (’14) received a Silver Dome Award this fall from the Illinois Broadcasters Association for the best college play-by-play in the state. 

•  News Watch was named best TV newscast at that same event, held in Chicago.

•  The Warbler took a Pinnacle Award (formerly known as the Best of Collegiate Design contest) for an entertainment spread with a pho-tograph by journalism senior Katie Smith, story by Brian Vorce (’14) and design by editor Brandyce Gor-don (’14).  It also took Best of Show for yearbooks under 300 pages at the ACP/CMA national college media convention this fall in Philadelphia.

• The Daily Eastern News took

ninth place in the four-year daily category at the ACP/CMA national college media convention this fall in Philadelphia, by far the school with the smallest enrollment in the top 10. Bobby Galuski (’14) was the editor of the Eastern News.

Kupiec, Warbler, News Watch, DEN take home awards

Brad Kupiec (’14) won a Silver Dome award from the Illinois Broadcasters Association for

best college play-by-play in the state.

By John RyanThe what, when, where and how

have been determined. Now the only question left unanswered is who will show up for the Journalism Depart-ment’s Homecoming North celebra-tion Feb. 21 in Chicago.

A large gathering is expected from 8 to 11 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, at Seven Ten Lounge, 2747 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago.

Some finger foods, beer and bowling will be provided, but alumni will be asked to contribute to cover the cost of the event or else we’ll all be doing dishes.

Journalism Interim Chair Sally Renaud and journalism faculty Lola

Burnham, John Ryan, Joe Gisondi, and Bryan Murley, among others, will be on hand to greet alumni and to catch up on what they are doing.

Alumni will be let in on the plans for The Daily Eastern News’ 100th Anniversary Party on Nov. 7 at the University Union, and, of course, they’ll hear about our efforts to raise $100,000 in an endowment fund.

Bohannon builds relationships with alumni

Alums have a couple of options to keep up with news happening in the Journalism Department and stu-dent media in between editions of -30-.

If you haven’t already joined the department’s alumni listserv, you can send your email address to Lola Burnham at <laburnham@eiu.edu>. The listserv is open to anyone who was a journalism major or minor at Eastern or who worked at Student Publications or WEIU. Current and retired faculty are also members.

The listserv is used to send out news about the department but mainly is used as a job listing notice. Anyone who is a member may post

to it by sending an email to <eiujou@lists.eiu.edu>. If you have news of a job opening, you may post directly yourself or send it to Burnham.

On Facebook, check out the de-partment’s page by searching for “Eastern Illinois University Journal-ism.” If you like what you see, you can like the page to get updates in your news feed.

The student media all have their own pages too. Just search for:

• The Daily Eastern News• Warbler Yearbook• The Verge at EIU• WEIU TV Public Broadcasting

Station

Join our listserv or FacebookConnections Homecoming North

set Feb. 21 in Chicago

TwitterIf you’re Twit-ter friendly, follow the department at@EIU_Journalism.

Randi Bohannon

7February 2015

“We have confidence in each other,” she said. “We have that background. We have each other’s backs.”

Kevin Murphy loves sports. But he’s also a good copy editor. News and sports. He started in 2010 at Sauk Valley in Sterling, Ill., copy editing (and occasionally covering sports) for two papers six days a week. Since August 2012 he has been in news and sports at the major design hub in Crys-tal Lake.

And he likes being the go-to person.“It’s all over the map,” Murphy said. “I am

trained on every section, so when we need some-one to fill in, I can.”

Murphy’s experience in sports has paid off, since he can fill in for the sports desk when need-ed.

“I probably undertand that [sports] copy the most,” he said. “I know the conferences, if a per-son’s last name is spelled wrong or there are incon-sistencies. I am a lot more confident in sports,” he said.

But he’s not limited to sports.“I like doing A1 covers,” he said. “It’s not the

same every day.”Murphy said that is one of the most exciting

things about working at the Northwest Herald. One of the others is the pace.

“It’s like triage,” he said. Designers and copy editors have to be able to

see the problems, evaluate which need to be han-dled first, and fix the problems.

“I really like going to work and doing what I do. I love catching mistakes and not doing the same section every day. It keeps me on my toes.”

And it’s fast.“Since [Kristina]’s taken over, as stressful as

newsrooms can be, she’s done a good job of man-aging that.”

Murphy said Peters has created a good work-ing environment.

“It’s been really great working with her, and it’s been fun working with everyone,” he said. “It’s good to be with all these Eastern people.”

Although they see his stories all the time, at least one night a week they actually see Stephen DiBenedetto. He has a desk near the scanner, which may be noisy, but he’s used to it. Once a week he’s in the newsroom working the night shift, covering breaking news such as fires and accidents.

DiBenedetto’s path to the paper was through the Public Affairs Reporting program at the Uni-versity of Illinois-Springfield. After interning in 2011 with fellow Eastern alum Dave McKinney, (’86) then at the Sun-Times, DiBenedetto worked for seven months at the Galesburg Register-Mail covering area local government. He started at the Herald in April 2012, covering local school and

village boards.“It’s not a typical office job,” he said. “Every day

is a new story, and there is never a dull moment.”As a reporter, DiBenedetto is not in the same

division of the paper as the rest of the alums, but he works with them indirectly.

“I think it’s kind of neat. It’s rare to have four other people in the newsroom that you went to school with,” he said. “It’s comforting to know I’m working with people I have worked with in the DEN newsroom.”

When Peters was editor-in-chief, DiBenedetto was the news editor.

And now they are all employed and they still get to work together.

“It’s especially nice in this day and age when times are tough are in the industry,” he said.

And now there is Walden. Chris Walden has just joined the group on the desk.

“It’s been fun,” Peters said. “It’s been awesome to see familiar faces when we’re at work, and it proves what good talent comes out of Eastern. We felt good hiring Chris because we know what he can do.”

Murphy agrees.“Going back to our Eastern days, we know

what we’re good at,” he said. “It’s good to be with Eastern people. We know our strengths and weak-nesses and we feed off each other. You know who to go to for help.”

Alums together againContinued from Page 1

Photo: Liz Viall Homecoming North, set for Feb. 21 in Chicago, is another chance for EIU journalism and student media alums to catch up with each oth-er. Above, journalism professor Dan Hagen and Zach White (’13) talk during the department’s annual Chili Bash on campus.

Chili Bash 2014

Photo: Lola BurnhamBrad Kupiec (’14), Liz Grubart, Meg Simpson, Katelyn Ifft, Savanna Tomei and Matt Gagnier commune during Chili Bash.

Marco Santana (’08) second from left, was named journalism Alumnus of the Year during Homecom-ing festivities. Also partaking of chili and beverages were Pam Schwartz, Eric Hilt-ner (’10) and Christy Kilgore (’01).Photo: Lola Burnham

8 -30--30- for EIU journalism and student media alumni

EIU Journalism Faculty and Staff NotesLola Burnham (’83) returned

from her fall 2014 sabbatical. She studied for her comprehensive ex-ams, which she hopes to take this se-mester, and continued her research on her dissertation that will exam-ine First Amendment issues that concern junior high and high school speech directed at school officials that occurs off campus but online. Her first topic choice, however, was media in the Harry Potter books.

Lola has been appointed to Com-mittee for the Assessment of Student Learning and is still coordinating the department’s assessment, while advising The Daily Eastern News, with Katie Smith, a senior journal-ism major from Lake Villa, Ill., as editor. Welcome back, Lola.

In Lola’s absence, John Ryan (’75) returned to editorial advising after a 10-year absence. His critiques bled blue ink, but the staff was heart-ened by the $5 bills awarded for the Best of the Week. JR is still busy di-recting the Mid-America Press In-stitute, now preparing for the Feb. 28 management workshop in St. Louis. Find out more information at https://mpinews.wordpress.com/.

Eunseong Kim is on sabbatical for the spring 2015 semester. She is traveling to Korea and research-ing. When she comes back, she will be teaching Race and Gender in the Media and a section of the depart-ment’s new general education class, “News, Information and Media Lit-eracy,” which is designed to help students dissect the messages that surround them: their origins, their sources, their biases.

Joe Gisondi was a presenter Feb. 6 and 7 at the College Media Asso-ciation’s second Sports Reporting Workshop at the Bridgestone Arena, home to the NHL’s Nashville Pred-ators. [Four members of the Dai-ly Eastern News’ sports staff: Bob Reynolds, Jehad Abbed, Blake Nash and Sean Hastings attended the con-ference.] Gisondi is also advising the Warbler, whose final deadlines are right around the corner. The War-bler editor is Gina Volk, a senior journalism major from Olney, Ill.

Gisondi’s book, “Monster Trek: The Obsessive Search for Bigfoot,” will be published by the Univer-sity of Nebraska Press in fall 2015. He has also been commissioned to write a second edition of his popular textbook, “Field Guide to Covering Sports.”

Liz Viall is the adviser for The Agency, whose talent show for the Salvation Army is in its third year. The Agency staff, under the direc-tion of senior journalism major Katelyn Ifft of Morton, Ill., coordi-nates the entire event, from the acts to the promotions.

Viall also created a new promo-tional flier for the department to use

at open houses.Brian Poulter is the sponsor for

the Society for Collegiate Journalists. Twenty-six new members were in-ducted in December, which includ-ed a suprise induction for Poulter as an honorary member. This semester the group will be staffing the jour-nalism table at open houses, work-ing at the IHSA state contest and other activities.

Poulter was also happy to receive 17 new cameras for the advanced photojournalism class. Thank you, generous alums, for providing the money to purchase this equipment!

Kelly Runyon (‘92) is teaching the beginning broadcast news writ-ing class. News director of WEIU’s News Watch since 2001 and teaching for the department since 2011, Run-yon has become a vital part of our faculty. Her staff won a Silver Dome Award from the Illinois Broadcast-ers Association this fall.

Brian Murley traveled to West-ern Illinois University this fall to work with its journalism staff and students on multimedia. In his spare time he is still playing his guitar and working on a comprehensive music website for East Central Illinois at http://colescountyrocks.com/.

Beth Heldebrandt, former fea-tures editor for the Journal Gazette, has been teaching Introduction to

Copy Editing for the department since 2004. For her “real job” she now works in Booth Library han-dling publicity and public relations.

On Feb. 12 she presented a pro-gram on Quanah and Cynthia Ann Parker at the Crawford County His-torical Society in Robinson, Ill.

Les Hyder participated in the Booth Library’s Revolutionary De-cade, Reflections on the 1960s ex-hibit and program series.

On Oct. 1, he presented Ne-glected Promises Realized: The First Amendment Comes of Age in the ’60s. Hyder focused on a series of rulings during the ’60s when the Su-preme Court finally began to inter-pret the rights specified in the First Amendment as being guaranteed to all American citizens.

Beth Kastl, the department’s of-fice manager, is preparing to gradu-ate with a degree in general studies. She walked in the December gradua-tion and is finishing her final course as she takes care of the students and faculty who walk through our doors. Beth as been with the department since 2006. See the story on Page 3.

Joining Runyon teaching Broad-cast News and Heldebrandt teaching Copy Editing this semster as adjunct faculty members are two more sea-soned professionals: Drew Wilder and Rich Moser.

Drew Wilder, a morning host and anchor on WCIA-3, the CBS affiliate in Champaign, teaches the Advanced Broadcast News class twice a week. He started at WCIA as a sportscaster and then moved to the morning show in 2012. Wilder worked for four years at News Watch as a student at EIU, and he graduat-ed in 2008 with a degree in commu-nication studies.

Rich Moser, the sports infor-mation director for EIU since 2006, is teaching Sports Media Relations, a new course in the journalism de-partment’s new sports media rela-tions minor. Moser came to EIU from Gonzaga University where he was an assistant SID. Since arriv-ing at EIU, Moser has worked with many journalism students who help with media guides, game stats and promotions.

Welcome Drew and Rich to our staff!

It was great to see retired jour-nalism professor Evelyn Goodrich at our Sweet Fest to celebrate our December graduates. Goodrich had been hospitalized this summer but is getting her strength back. Goodrich came bearing chocolate chip cookies and was able to join us for the after-noon. So glad you are feeling better, Evelyn!

Photo: Joe GisondiDEN sportswriters Blake Nash, Sean Hastings, Bob Reynolds and Jehad Abbed attended the College Me-dia Association sports workshop Feb. 6 and 7 in Nashville. Standing in front is Buster Olney, ESPN senior baseball writer, who spoke at the event.