The Rio Grande Chapter board of directors is excited to announce its training scholarship recipients. This round’s winners include KUNM’s Elaine Baumgartel, Silver City Sun-News reporter Aaron West, and independent reporter Bryant Furlow.
Elaine Baumgartel, KUMN's Morning Edition Host and Reporter
Elaine volunteered to answer phones during a KUNM pledge drive in 2003 and she’s been unable to drag herself away from public radio ever since. And why would she want to? As a graduate student in the Communication and Journalism MA program at the University of New Mexico, she also worked at KUNM in the operations, programming, and news departments. For her MA Thesis, she examined patterns in coverage of violence against women and produced a three-part radio documentary series on the West Mesa murders in Albuquerque, NM. She’s been hosting NPR’s Morning Edition since the fall of 2007 and is enjoying the new task of hosting the KUNM Call In Show Thursday mornings at 8am. In her spare time, Elaine likes to garden and work with ceramics in addition to spending time with her family.
Elaine will be enrolling in the Poynter SocialMedia Webinar Series.
Silver City Sun-News reporter, Aaron West
Aaron West, recent graduate of the University of Texas at Austin’s journalism program, is a fledgling news reporter at the Silver City Sun-News in Silver City, NM.
According to West: “When I graduated from college in December, I knew exactly what I wanted to do— work at a daily newspaper in a small town. You see, I grew up in a small city in East Texas and I’ve had a hand in putting newspapers out since I was the editor of my 6th grade class’ newsletter, so I figured moving to an unfamiliar place and putting myself in the middle of its culture and politics would be right up my alley. I was correct. Upon getting the job (I know, those things still exist?) and moving here in January, I’ve written long features, covered breaking news situations (an inmate escaped from the local detention center within three weeks of me starting at the paper), and even broke the news when a famous Colorado runner vanished into the rugged Gila Wilderness and was later found dead. And of course, there’s that endless flow of community journalism. Basically, I love what I do and I’m very pleased that I decided to move here, but I want to go deeper.”
Aaron will be putting his scholarship money toward attending the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government seminar happening later this week in Albuquerque.
Independent reporter Bryant Furlow
Bryant Furlow is an Albuquerque-based freelance journalist who covers health care and state and local government for the Santa Fe Reporter and the Guadalupe County Communicator. He also volunteers as a coordinator for the Corrales International School’s middle-school newspaper. This year, he’s reporting on environmental and veterans’ issues, rural drug abuse and obesity, and improprieties and possible corruption at government agencies—and will be putting his Rio Grande Chapter scholarship toward five online Poynter/NewsU online courses.
Please join us in sending out congrats to Elaine, Aaron, and Bryant!