Taft Award

In 1981, Dr. Robert Knight, then director of MIJA, nominated Associate Dean William H. Taft of the Missouri School of Journalism for a special award for his continuing and outstanding service to scholastic journalism.

Taft had evaluated more than 10,000 yearbooks for MIJA, thousands of books for National School Yearbook Association; directed two editions of a Newspaper Fund Summer Institute; served as director of Summer Media Workshop; developed a correspondence study version of Journalism 380 “High School Journalism;” plus wrote helpful articles for the MIJA News-gram and spoke at MIJA events. It was decided at that time that the special award would be named the “Taft Award.”

To continue this tradition of recognizing excellence and dedication, we hope you will nominate any person or group giving outstanding service to scholastic journalism and/or to MIJA by completing this online nomination form by Friday, Feb. 10, 2023.

The honoree and/or the nominator will be invited to prepare a 30-second acceptance video to run at the spring J-Day on the MU campus.

Past honorees include:

1982 H. L. Hall, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood
1983 Ron Clemons, Truman High School, Independence
1984 Earl English, Dean Emeritus, School of Journalism
1985 Helen Brakke-Buel, Jefferson City Senior High School, Jefferson City
1986 UMC Extension Division
1987 Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists
1988 Barbie Mankey, School of Journalism
1989 Molly Clemons, then: Palmer Junior High School, Independence
1990 Virginia Woodring, Springfield
1991 Howard Emerson, Hazelwood School District, Florissant
1992 Dr. Robert P. Knight (given posthumously)
1993 Elizabeth Lockhart, Cape Girardeau
1994 Kathy Craghead, Mexico High School, Mexico
1995 Mary Lu Foreman, Kansas City
1996 Sandy Newcomer, Macks Creek High School, Macks Creek
1997 Opal Eckert, Retired
1998 Bill Hankins, Oak Park High School, Kansas City
1999 Dean Mills, Dean, Missouri School of Journalism
2000 Bruce Schneider, Parkway South High School, Chesterfield
2001 Diane Boyle, Parkway Central High School, Chesterfield
2002 Missouri Press Association and Doug Crews, Executive Director
2005 John G. “Jack” Hodgson, Oklahoma State University
2006 Karen Black, Hickman Mills High School, Kansas City
2008 Susan Newburger, Park Hill South High School, Kansas City
2009 John Kelley, Walsworth Publishing
2010 Marc Russell, Lee’s Summit High School, Lee’s Summit
2011 Nancy Freeman, Clayton High School, St. Louis
2012 Minerva Howard, Columbia
2015 Christina Geabhart, Oak Park High School, Kansas City; and Michelle Turner, Washington High School, Washington
2016 Donald Johnson, Webster Groves High School, Webster Groves
2017 Megan Palmer, Park Hill South High School, Riverside
2018 Bob Bergland, Ph.D., journalism professor at Missouri Western State University, St. Joseph
2019 Ben Merithew, Fort Osage High School
2020 Leigh Rogers, Hermann High School
2021 – Suzette Herman and Ron Kelley, Missouri School of Journalism
2022 – Colonel James “Jim” Craig Dumont, Jostens Yearbook Missouri representative
2023 – Nancy Smith, Lafayette High School, Wildwood