By now we will have enjoyed a wonderful evening together at the 9th Annual KCABJ Media Awards Ceremony during the Saturday, Nov. 4 banquet at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center, 3700 Blue Parkway.

I want to thank everyone who worked so hard to make the event a success. As always there was a lot of behind the scenes work that took place to make all of the pieces come together. Here are just a few worth mentioning: KCABJ member Malecia El-Amin completed the work on the Journal 2000, the student newspaper from the KCABJ Urban Journalism Workshop at Rockhurst University. The Kansas City Star again came through with its inkind support of publishing the Journal. On the broadcast side, KCABJ member Pete Wilkerson finished the students' videotapes. He also prepared a videotape of their newscast, which was shown at the banquet.

1999 KCABJ Secretary Amie Hudspeth made a videotape of the winning broadcast entries, which was shown during the presentation of awards at the banquet. KCABJ member and Awards Committee Co-Chair Anita Parran worked with KCABJ member Melanie Coffee to put the print display together in the foyer of the Watkins Center. Melanie served as chief judge for the print entries and got KCABJ members Roslyn Burney and Delores M. Jones-Morris to assist her. KCABJ Treasurer and Awards Committee Co-Chair Lewis Diuguid worked with KCABJ members Patricia Hardin and Kesha Moorefield in judging the broadcast and public relations entries. Anita put together the decorations and secured the Peach Tree Restaurant as the soul food caterer and got the Watkins Center to again allow us to have our banquet at the lovely facility in the black community. This was an African-American event that supported African-American businesses and facilities in the black community. Our dollars contributed to the badly needed economic multiplier effect to benefit people of color.

Lewis hustled tremendously on ticket sales and the awards themselves. KCABJ members Joi Preciphs and KCABJ Vice President/Print Erica Wood made reminder calls to members for tickets. My hope is we can assemble digital pictures of the awards dinner for the new KCABJ Web site (www.kcabj.org).

By the way, our November meeting is set for 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 18 at Bruce Watkins Cultural Center 3700 Blue Parkway. The topics will include our December holiday party/election of officers and a critique of the awards banquet (remember it will teach us what we need to work on for our 20th anniversary celebration in 2001.) Also think about what office you would like to run for and which committees you would like to head next year. So far we have enjoyed a very good year.

--Benita Y. Williams, KCABJ President
bwilliams@kcstar.com
president@kcabj.org

Probably the biggest news that came out of the 2000 KCABJ Media Awards Ceremony on Nov. 4 at the at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center was that no KCABJ Thumbs Down Award was given this year. It annually goes to a Kansas City area media personality or company for setting back the image of African Americans or other people of color in Greater Kansas City. This award is balanced against the honors KCABJ annually gives to area journalists for enterprise reporting, photography, art and editorial writing about people of color. The Executive Board of the Kansas City Association of Black Journalists takes great care in naming the recipient, and for 2000 none of the entries submitted met the documentation and other requirements.

The KCABJ Roy Wilkins Scholarship has been awarded since 1987. It is named after a former editor of the Kansas City Call, Roy Wilkins, who also served as head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during the Civil Rights Movement.

The winner of the KCABJ Roy Wilkins Scholarship is Fatimeh El-Sherif. She received $2,000 in savings bonds for college. El-Sherif is a 2000 graduate of the Islamic School of Kansas City and currently is a freshman at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is news editor of the University News.

A new award is the KCABJ-Kansas City Star Laura R. Hockaday Scholarship. It carries Ms. Hockaday's name. Until she retired this year, Hockaday was the longtime society editor of The Kansas City Star. She did a tremendous job in making her work inclusive of the racial, ethnic, gender and other diversity in Greater Kansas City. The recipient of this new scholarship is Ashley Nicole Scott. Scott is a senior at Byrd High School in Shreveport, La. She will receive $1,000 for college from The Kansas City Star.

The third award is the KCABJ Nancy Diuguid Scholarship. It is funded by KCABJ Treasurer Lewis Diuguid and named for his mother, who died in 1994. Strangely enough, the other Lewis Diuguid, a retired assistant foreign editor at The Washington Post, made a financial donation to this scholarship this year. Our Lew Diuguid's mother had longed to be a journalist, but such career options were mostly closed to young black women in the 1950s when she came of age. The winner of this scholarship is Lynita F. Jones. She is a graduate of Hickman Mills High School, and had been among the talent on the popular Saturday morning KPRS-FM show, ``Generation Rap.'' Jones currently is a freshman at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She received a $500 savings bond for college.

The student scholarship recipients were among six graduates of the 2000 KCABJ Urban Journalism Workshop held annually at Rockhurst University. Each award was based on merit. The other students were Danielle Hicks, a senior at Central High School; Erika N. Turner, a senior at Hickman Mills High School; and Rasheedah Ahmed, a freshman at the University of Maryland at College Park.

KCABJ President's Award:

This honor annually goes to the area journalist who has done the most to further the interests of the Kansas City Association of Black Journalists. This also is an individual who selflessly gives of his or her time, talent and resources to benefit other journalists of color in Greater Kansas City. KCABJ President Benita Y. Williams has picked Pete Wilkerson for the KCABJ President's Award. Wilkerson is a member of KCABJ, a longtime award-winning cameraman for KCTV-5, a former reporter for The Kansas City Times and a University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism graduate. Wilkerson volunteered this year on short notice to coordinate the broadcast portion of the summer student workshop. He has served in that capacity in the 1980s and 1990s and stepped up when the need was there in 2000.

Other 2000 KCABJ Media Award recipients: