Lauren Smyth talks on the radio. Courtesy | Scot Bertram
Three Hillsdale students are finalists in the 2025 National Student Media Contest held by College Broadcasters, Inc., an organization that aims to support and recognize high school and college media producers.
Junior Luke Miller and recent graduates Lauren Smyth ’25 and Erin Osbourne ’25 all placed as finalists. The CBI will announce the winners at their convention in October.
Miller received a nomination in the category Best Radio Documentary for his piece “Alamo of the Pacific.” About 10 minutes long, it details the story of a World War II battle on Wake Island, an island in the Central Pacific that was attacked by the Japanese only hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The battle was “one of the most overlooked moral victories for the U.S. in World War II,” Miller said.
Smyth was nominated for her newscast “Lauren Smyth News,” and Osbourne is a finalist in the Best Feature News Reporting category for her coverage of Hillsdale’s annual Battle of the Bands, an on-campus music concert hosted by the music fraternity Theta Epsilon.
Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM General Manager Scot Bertram spoke highly of all three students.
“I worked really closely with Lauren for all four years, and then Erin did more as she was getting into her senior year,” Bertram said. “Lauren was a natural from day one. I helped a little bit in the margins, but she had a great understanding of the way things should sound.”
Miller stood out as well for his work in the studio, according to Bertram.
“Part of the challenge with production is getting that thing that’s in your head into the production,” Bertram said. “I can help so much, but at some point the student has to say, ‘this is what I hear,’ and translate that. Luke’s documentary, ‘Alamo of the Pacific,’ was just really impressive from someone who had not done a lot of work previously with radio and audio.”
Smyth said the writing classes she took at Hillsdale were especially important.
“I had experience writing coming in, but while I was at Hillsdale I took a bunch of writing classes, both from Scot Bertram for radio and also John Miller for print, and I can’t say enough good things about those classes,” Smyth said. “I would not be able to do the role that I do now without having taken those classes and just gotten all the feedback from them. It really is personalized feedback that makes the biggest difference, and Hillsdale offers a ton of that.”
Luke Miller and Smyth have differing perspectives on possibly winning the award.
“I try not to keep track of that sort of thing because it stresses me out,” Smyth said. “There are three different radio awards that we enter, and so at any given time during the year it’s possible that your name will come up in a nomination or it’s possible that you’ll win something, and because I’m a writer as well I enter other competitions around the same time, and it’s very stressful to know that. So the goal is to not keep track of it, but the actual reality is that I do usually keep track of it. If I know I’m a finalist for something, I’ll try to keep track of the award winners.”
Miller’s answer reflected his experience in the journalism department.
“I felt honored,” Miller said. “Not only to be chosen as a finalist, but to now be a part of an incredible group of Hillsdale radio students to be recognized by CBI over the years. The standard for us as Hillsdale journalism students has been set really high by the people who were here before us, so I’m grateful and I’m really excited to be recognized.”
