Dow Tate named a 2018 Pioneer Award winner by NSPA

The National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) announced Wednesday that five individuals have been selected to receive 2018 Pioneer Awards, NSPA’s top individual honor, including Dow Tate, the yearbook adviser at Walsworth Yearbooks school Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village, Kansas.

Each year, NSPA awards the Pioneers to people who have made a significant contribution to scholastic journalism beyond their regular job requirements.

This is not the first national honor for Tate. In 2011, he was named a Kansas Teacher of the Year finalist. He has been inducted into the Scholastic Journalism Hall of Fame at the University of Oklahoma and was named a Texas Legend, as one of the most influential people in the state’s 75-year scholastic journalism history. He is also a past winner of the Dow Jones News Fund’s National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year award.

Tate taught 14 years at Hillcrest High School in Dallas, Texas, before moving to Kansas. His students’ publications – the newspaper, yearbook and news website — have earned the nation’s highest honors, including the NSPA’s Pacemaker and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Gold Crown.

This year’s Pioneer winners include:

• Rick Brooks
• Carrie Faust
• Kelly Furnas
• Sally Renaud
• Dow Tate

The 2018 Pioneer winners will be recognized at the JEA/NSPA Fall National High School Journalism Convention in November in Chicago.

NSPA maintains a composite plaque of all Pioneer winners at their headquarters in Minneapolis. Candidates are nominated by previous Pioneer winners and NSPA board members.