Westside’s Rod Howe named winner of CSPA Gold Key

Kansas City, Mo. (March 12, 2013) – The Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) announced the recipients for its annual individual awards this week and Rod Howe, the yearbook adviser at Walsworth customer Westside High School in Omaha, Neb., was named as a Gold Key award winner.

Each year, the CSPA awards the Gold Key to individuals to recognize outstanding devotion to scholastic journalism. Howe has been the journalism instructor at Westside High School for the past 23 years, and plans to retire on May 31. His publications have been past National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) Pacemaker Finalists, and earned numerous state journalism championships in Nebraska. In 2006, Howe was named a Pioneer Award winner by the NSPA.

“I was truly surprised to learn I will be honored as a Gold Key recipient,” said Howe. “It is exciting and humbling, as well as an incredible way to cap my career as an adviser at Westside.”

Other winners of the Gold Key this year include:

• Karl Grubaugh – Granite Bay High School, Granite Bay, Calif.
• Robert Hankes – Big Springs High School, Newville, Pa.
• Andrea Mulshine – Communications High School, Wall, N.J.
• Jacob Palenske – Marketing Communications Manager, Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems, McKinney, Texas
• Meghan Percival – McLean High School, McLean, Va.
• Cindy Todd – Westlake High School, Austin, Texas

Diana Mitsu Klos, current media strategist and formerly the Senior Project Director for American Society of News Editors, is this year’s winner of the Joseph M. Murphy Award, which is awarded each year for outstanding service to student press and to CSPA.

C. Randy Stano, adviser at the University of Miami in Florida and past winner of the Joseph M. Murphy Award, is this year’s winner of the Charles R. O’Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching and recognizes a sustained record of outstanding teaching in support of student journalism.

All of the individual award winners will be honored at the Awards Luncheon on March 22 during CSPA’s Spring Convention in New York City.