General Manager at WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM Scot Bertram poses with the award for College Audio Station of the Year.
Lauren Scott | Collegian
WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM recently won the Michigan Association of Broadcasters’ 2024 College Audio Station of the Year award, and The Collegian won 11 awards in the Michigan Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest.
Radio Free Hillsdale won 12 additional awards on March 18, including six for first place, four for second place, and two for third place awards. The Collegian won three first place awards, three second place awards, two third place awards, and three honorable mentions in the Better Newspaper Contest awards announced March 14.
“I’m very proud of the work the Collegian students put into making the newspaper each week,” said Maria Servold, assistant director of the Dow Journalism Program. “Few people appreciate the dedication the Collegian students have. I’m glad that their work has been recognized.”
This is the second consecutive year Radio Free Hillsdale has won College Audio Station of the Year and the third time overall. The first victory came in 2019. The station was founded in 2015 and began submitting for awards in 2017, according to Scot Bertram, general manager of the station.
“Being honored in this way is special,” Bertram said. “It’s incredible to step back and think that our students are competing and winning these awards against college radio/audio programs at institutions with student populations that are 10, 20, even nearly 40 times larger than Hillsdale’s enrollment.”
Senior Thérèse Boudreaux won first place in the daily newscast/news feature category for her broadcast “Spotlight on PFAS,” which discussed the dangers of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals” that pollute the environment and drinking water.
“The broadcast was not something I thought I’d win an award for, because it was basically just clips of my PFAS documentary turned into a newscast,” Boudreaux said.
She said she likes the creativity the radio program encourages.
“It’s a very independent process,” she said. “What you make is 100% your creation, start to finish, but there are always people there to help if you need it.”
Bertram said he likes seeing students’ hard work recognized.
“Thérèse now has won both a national first place and a statewide first place for her piece on PFAS,” he said. “That’s pretty tough to do.”
Sophomore Evan Mick won first place in the sports feature category for his piece on Hillsdale’s new football coach. He also won second place for his piece “The Life of a Kicker.”
“I love the sport of football, and this is another avenue in which I get to be involved in it,” Mick said. “I get to learn new things about the sport that I am around every day.”
According to Bertram, the editorial category was new for MAB. Junior Gavin Listro won first place for a piece on misleading marketing for electric vehicles.
“I was trying to bring awareness to the idea that marketing should highlight actual benefits of electric vehicles while still being truthful about environmental impacts,” Listro said.
Abigail Snyder ’23 won second place in the editorial category for a piece on the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel.
“Throughout my 3.5 years at Hillsdale, I had a podcast/radio show called ‘The Virtual Voyage,’” Snyder said. “It was an armchair travel show where I took people to visit my favorite sites in Israel, all from their comfort zone. Listeners could put on their headphones and feel like they were there at various sites in Israel, with me as their tour guide.”
Snyder spent four summers in Israel, participating in an archeological dig for one, and will pursue a master’s in Jewish Studies at the University of Virginia.
“After 10/7, I knew I had to use my platform to spread truth about what was happening in Israel, especially in the face of blatant anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda, so I dedicated the remaining episodes of my senior semester to interviewing key figures about the war in Israel,” Snyder said.
Snyder focused her 60-second editorial on the hostage situation in Israel.
“I hope and pray that these submissions brought further awareness to the war in Israel and helped people see the truth,” she said.
The Collegian won awards across several categories, including second and third place for best writer, second and third place and honorable mention for feature story, and first and second place for front page design.
Collegian Associate Editor Logan Washburn won honorable mention in the news story category for his piece about city power restoration after an ice storm. He said the storm hit the night before publishing The Collegian.
“Covering real-life breaking news is always an exciting experience,” Washburn said. “I was surprised my coverage of the storm recovery won an award because it was so rushed, but sometimes that can help because it keeps you from overthinking.”
Junior Jack Cote won two first place awards in the news-only photo and feature photo categories.
“Those two photos were particularly special because they each capture a very genuine moment,” Cote said. “I’m most proud of my work when they feel as genuine as those two photos.”
Cote said he likes all aspects of photography.
“Finding an interesting subject, figuring out framing, editing and playing with colors — it’s all really fulfilling for me,” he said.
Maggie Hroncich ’23, former editor-in-chief of The Collegian, won second place for both best writer and feature story.
“I was honored to be named for an award,” said Hroncich, who is now a reporter for the New York Sun. “My feature piece on the fossils in the walls of the Arb was one of my favorites to write because I learned Hillsdale has a lot of history that is still being discovered. Biology Professor Anthony Swinehart told me he used old Hillsdale newspaper archives as part of his research in confirming the mystery, so it was a cool reminder that Collegian articles aren’t just fleeting news of the day, they’re recording the story of the college.”
Current Editor-in-Chief and senior Elizabeth Troutman won third place for best writer and second place for front page design.
“That page design was for the paper that came out after the midterm elections, so I featured a photo of Gretchen Whitmer, the winning gubernatorial candidate, with a graph laying out the vote distribution,” Troutman said. “That layout took a lot of time and was my favorite one I designed, so it’s exciting that it won an award.”
Troutman encouraged younger writers to write often and learn from their edits.
“The experiences I’ve gotten writing for The Collegian and in my journalism classes have been invaluable to my development as a writer,” she said. “I am so thankful to the Hillsdale journalism program for teaching me how to write and edit and for instilling in me a great love for journalism.”
John J. Miller, director of the Dow Journalism Program, said the awards show the high quality of journalism students.
“These results show that Collegian writers are producing some of the best campus journalism in the state,” he said. “Next they’ll win Pulitzers.”
