National JEA honors three IJEA members

The new school year is only a few weeks old, and already three Illinois Journalism Education Association members have received prestigious honors from the national JEA.

Deb Buttleman Malcolm, MJE, and Tom Winski, MJE, are among the 10 winners of JEA’s 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award. They will be honored Nov. 14 at the JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in Orlando, Fla. The award recognizes retirees for lifetime dedication to journalism education.

Katie Comeford, meanwhile, is among four national winners of JEA Future Teacher Scholarships. Worth $1,000 each, the scholarships go to graduate students working on master’s degrees to improve their skills as journalism teachers and school media advisers.

Here’s a closer look at the honorees:

Deb Buttleman Malcolm, MJE
JEA Lifetime Achievement Award
Deb advised the newspaper, online site and yearbook at Davenport Central High School in Iowa until retiring in 2014. Although she worked in Iowa, she lives in Moline, Ill. It’s an indication of her commitment to journalism education that she not only became a lifetime member of IJEA despite working in another state, she also served on the Board of Directors. In its announcement of the award, JEA noted Deb’s passion for getting students interested in journalism: “Increasing diversity was her hallmark. Along with her students, she developed a model journalism program for elementary and middle school students in Central’s feeder schools, which encouraged them to consider journalism in high school.”

Thomas E. Winski, MJE
JEA Lifetime Achievement Award
A resident of Roseville, Ill., Tom spent 35 years as a journalism educator, retiring in 2011. Tom’s involvement with IJEA goes back to 1988, when he helped to co-found the organization. Twenty years later he was a member of the IJEA Hall of Fame‘s inaugural class. He has taught at Monmouth High School, Winchester H.S., Lindsey Wilson College, Emporia State University, MacMurray College and Lincoln Land Community College. With fellow IJEA lifetime member Sheryl Hinman, he co-wrote Journalism: Writing for Publication. An experienced photojournalist, reporter, editor and public relations director, Tom advised the award-winning staffs of 20 yearbooks, 25 newspapers and 11 arts magazines.

Katie Comeford
JEA Future Teacher Scholarship
In her six years at the Phoenix Military Academy, a public high school in Chicago, Katie has overseen the founding of two student publications: the yearbook and the student news website. Remarkably, she had never taken a journalism course before teaching at PMA. But she embraced the challenge, participating in the ASNE Reynolds Institute and becoming involved in several scholastic journalism organizations, including IJEA. Now a member of the IJEA Board of Directors, Katie is pursuing an online master’s degree for journalism educators from Kent State University, and her students have consistently won honors in publication contests at the city, state and national levels.