Melissa Caron ’09 honored by journalism organization

Melissa Caron, ’09, a business journalism major from North Conway, N.H., has won the prestigious George A. Bowles Memorial Scholarship for 2008 from the Virginia Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

Caron, who is also pursuing a concentration in poverty studies, received the $2,000 scholarship from Gov. Tim Kaine and chapter president Jason Roop at a reception at the Willow Oaks Country Club in Richmond on April 22. Kaine was the keynote speaker at the event, the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the founding of the Virginia professional chapter of SPJ, called Sigma Delta Chi when the chapter formed on April 22, 1958.

The chapter and its partner, the Richmond SPJ/SDX Educational Foundation, also gave an identical scholarship to Jaedda Armstrong, a mass communications-journalism major at Norfolk State University.

At the same event, the Virginia Pro Chapter honored former Roanoke Times political reporter David M. Poole with its 2008 George Mason Award for his role in creating the vpap.org Web site. The site is a creation of the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. It makes the disclosure of state and local campaign contributions easily accessible to reporters and citizens alike.

Since 1971, the chapter has granted up to two scholarships a year to college students in Virginia who intend to become journalists. The scholarships recognize the honorees’ “accomplishments, commitment to careers in journalism and experience in journalism-related work and organizations.”

Caron is treasurer of  W&L’s chapter of SPJ (which is almost 30 years older than the Virginia Pro chapter) and was one of the organizers of the recent Region II spring conference of SPJ held at W&L. She interned last summer at The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette through the Shepherd Poverty Program and will be a Donald W. Reynolds Intern on the business desk of The Charlotte Observer this summer.

Prof. Doug Cumming, who accompanied Caron to the awards celebration in Richmond, praised Caron’s work covering the Rockbridge County community.

“Last fall, as one of my beat-reporting students, she out-performed all local media in covering a controversial zoning change for a gravel quarry in a rural area,” Cumming said.

In receiving the award, Caron spoke of the importance of journalism as a force for justice and giving voice to those who are otherwise not being heard.

The scholarship is named for the late George A. Bowles, a former political columnist with The  Daily Progress in Charlottesville and chief of the Capitol bureau for the Virginia News Network.